Venezia, mi amore!

Venice, I am smitten. You could hurt me – lie to me, wreck me beyond all hope of repair or reconciliation, take everything I have and leave me stranded heart in hand – and I would still turn at your mention, blush at the sound of your name.


I fell for it all from the beginning – the canals, the narrow alleys winding and weaving to seemingly nowhere, the street musicians filling the air with the soundtrack to a fine romance. The fresh fruit and seafood markets. The decorated gondolas, the battling orchestras of Piazza San Marco. The water reflecting its soft-focus onto the Palazzo Ducale and the Ponte del Sospirl.


And your language – how beautiful and undulant, like a gentle ocean! Balanced on the tongue at times like a sigh of anticipation on the tip of the lungs; or a first kiss – held softly, delicately at the lips before lips part and the moment passes, and the eyes slowly open. When I hear your language spoken I close my eyes and hear Cabiria describing her nights – I hear Fellini behind the camera, working his art.

And I have to admit I walked your streets tonight hoping to get lost and never found – to get swept down some canal, or be pressed into some alley wall like a finger into soft dough – and so spend the rest of my days here, knowing what you know.

One day I will return to Venice – with my girlfriend or my wife – and we will fall in love for the first, or second time – wrapped so in your charms.

Venice soundtrack: anything played on an accordion