Delirium

Just before I fainted in the restaurant that evening,
            I was telling you a story about a madman
            I saw earlier in the day
as I walked home from my ballet class
            just off the Piazza Santa Maria del Carmine.
After crossing the bridge of Santa TrXnita,
            looking in at Ghirlandaio's frescoes
            for the Sassetti family,
then wondering how many women there were
            who were young and rich enough
to wear the see-through lace cowboy shirts
            in the Gianni Versace windows
            on the Via Tornabuoni,
at the intersection of the Via de Calzaioli
            and the Via del Corso,
I walked into a hullabaloo being drummed up
by a bearded man who was stalking back and forth,       
screaming something in Italian, of course,
and waving his arms in the air.
But when he turned he would reach down with one hand,
            clamp his crotch,
            and then pull his body around
as though his hips were a bad dog
            and his genitals a leash he was yanking.
After each turn he'd continue stalking and flailing,
            until time to turn again.
So I am trying to explain this and our pizza comes,
            and I saw off a bite, but it is too hot,
so what do I do but swallow it, and it's too hot,
            and I think, it's too hot,
and my voice decelerates as if it is a recording
            on a slowly melting tape and the scene
in the restaurant begins to recede:
in the far distance I see the bearded man ranting
            on the street,
then nearer but retreating quickly you
            and the long corridor of the restaurant,
then it's as if I am falling into a cavity behind me,
            one that is always there, though I've learned to ignore it,
but I'm falling now, first through a riot of red rooms,
            then gold, green, blue and darker
until I finally drift into the black room
            where my mind can rest.
I wake up in the kitchen, lying on a wooden bench,
            with you and the waiter staring at me.
"I'm fine," I say, though it's as if I am pulling
            my mind up from a deep well.
The waiter brings me a bowl of soup,
            which I don't want, but it doesn't matter because
the lights go out and a man at the next table says,
            "Primo quella signora ed ora la luce,"
which means, first that woman and now the light,
            and it's so dark that I can't see myself or you,
and I feel as if I'm turning, a mad voice
            rising from my stomach
crying where are we anyway, and who, and what, and why?

Previously published in The Paris Review and Delirium (University of North Texas, 1995).