Alchemy
1.
From high atop the Porta di San Gennaro,
this most ancient of Napoli’s city doors
named for the Saint of Liquifying Blood,
San Gennaro looks down from his niche
eye firmly fixed on Sasà serving up to devout
and unbeliever alike the Saint’s benevolence:
sacrament disguised as morning coffee,
caffè zuccherato Neapolitan style,
bitterness and sweetness commingled in a cup.
2.
In this city of miracles, the Saint bears witness
to this morning ritual amplified by long-lost
sounds I never thought to hear again,
the strains of a language so stretto,
so tightly bound to tongue and heart,
that some days it lands on my ear foreign
as the Ukrainian uttered by newly-arrived
asylum seekers or the Tamil intoned
at the Sri Lankan mass. My ear settles
along with my coffee, tunes in to the comforting
sounds of napoletano, to an old longing
to decipher so many cadences, some nameless,
some lost in the faultline of the heart where feeling
suddenly wells up, jagged edges subtly soften,
something waits to be reborn.
3.
Maybe the alchemy is in the gaze of the Saint
looking down from the Porta, or in the knowing
look of the Madonna sharing his niche;
maybe it is in the oversized ombrelloni,
their white canvas with peeling green letters generous
spreading overhead like wings offering me shelter, riparo.
Maybe the magic is in Sasà’s big heart welcoming
back la straniera as if a prodigal sister;
maybe the alchemy is simply
in the benevolence of the brew.
Letting the mystery linger I finish my coffee
pay Sasà for the holy grounds and disappear
under the Porta, no agenda but to lose
myself in the vicoli, the warren of alleyways,
lean into the protection of the red cornicello
talisman buried deep in my pocket, trust
that someone does have my back,
that the liquefying of whatever courses through my veins
requires no sanctioned feast day,
that the miracle of the un-congealing heart
is always in season.
Bio:
Gina Sconza is a California-born Italian-American with roots in Sicily and Calabria, and family dispersed throughout the Italian South, Brazil, Canada and the US. She has a passion for language and culture, expressed through her writing, teaching and travel. Her writing focuses on cultural memory and addresses both the richness and complexities of her linguistic and cultural heritages. She lives between the San Francisco Bay Area and the Italian South.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 