Tourists in Tuscany can’t help but trip
over all we call ‘architecture.’
No matter how fleeting their fling
with Florence, regardless of how brisk
their swing through Sienna 
or the speed with which they lean
into and out of love with Pisa, 

something haunts their saunters,
towers above their traipsings
through the olive groves, bars
them from too much amusement
in the face of fortressed enclaves
perched high above potato fields
and luxuriating vineyards. 

An accordion swells its announcement
across the piazza: the coast is clear
for the Instagram kiss at the far end
of the selfie stick. But the city gate
itself spoils the mood as it broods
above unpuckered lips. In the mists of
time these very gates 

were slammed in the face
of advancing armies. The lookout
towers testify to olive marauders
and grape thieves of bygone days.
The city itself still stands tall 
with shoulders squared and helmet
in place against the unneighborly  

near and far. Surely kill and be killed
can’t fill a vision to the brim. 
Surely a young man aspires to a quiet
not procured by armed watchmen’s
spires, or hard-won by armies, blood-
borne Pax Romana on repeat? Might
there be more along some blissful shore 

than merely being a brother’s keeper?
Could a man’s castello yet become
simply his casa, a hammock tied taut
in the shade of his portico, a bottle
of his own wine tucked tight beside,
his son surveying the vines across the
handlebars of his vintage Vespa, 

heaven’s chariot? Might the watchtowers
transform into city gates through which
an untroubled man on his estate
procures nightly telescopic beholdings
of still-distant heavens, pointing the lens
at far-flung piazzas and pointing his
freshly-puckered lips, no selfie stick 

in sight, at his stargazing bride?