| Postcards
ROME Dear I--, We were welcomed by the old men. They stopped buffing motorscooters to shout, "Ciao, bella!", nodded, and then picked up their cloths again. The older women are the best, though, strolling along the Tiber in fur and Gucci sunglasses; they don't let age interfere with their right to be fabulous. At the Pantheon, I was one of those mortals in an alien invasion movie where I watched the blue sky pass through the hole in the dome as if it were a blue-lighted spaceship. If you come, go to the Trevi Fountain for the figures, muscles like swelled melons, emerging from the wall, for the rush of water against the smooth marble, for the story of the boarded-up window. Throw a coin over your shoulder. But the police will stop you if you think you’re living La Dolce Vita, and splash around in the pool. Rome |