Poem by Anna Staropoli
Bologna is the color of its mother pasta, ragù: sienna, simmered scarlet, because Siena is another shade, another train, and Bologna’s palette is its palate on tongues and feet and souls who seek. Porticoed, colonnaded, this fantasy of faded sauce takes the shape of an entire city— place like palace, layered like lasagna. A red carpeted capital winds and climbs and crisps. Your city doesn’t glow in the ways known to the rest of your country; instead it flushes, blushes, for the blur of October sunsets and Sunday afternoons. How can one place evoke so many tastes and timelines: antiquity, history youth that acts like yeast, letting bygone eras rise, reviving the dormant with a reason to live? How can modern baubles bubble against the seams of the future, generations to come, while the city’s past ages like Lambrusco: sparkling darkening, neatly bottled; dribbling onto tablecloths and shirt cuffs, staining skin, dripping down throats, feeding on the frenzy of fleeting thirst. Here, history fizzes. Palimpsest’s bliss glows tipsy.
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 2019, Anna moved to Palermo, Sicily, and has been writing about all things Italy ever since. She currently works as a freelance writer.
