BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS

Imperial Thames, beside which circles of flame first fuelled the engines’ churning train. Desire consuming poor mad Aethon’s burning brain.

Languid Tiber: soft the surface lies through centuries of madmen’s lusted fame. Your bulwark banks have buried three empires. And what mere eye-blink Rome to you must seem. What to us? Shades. Wide as a world may dream.

CARRIE ETTER Ortigia, Sicily

The afternoon light flares— the marble-floored piazza, the baroque, limestone duomo once a temple to Athena— all trace of sacrifice long since worn away.

The groom ascends the few steps to the church, and women in long dresses—silver, teal, violet— arrive and gather. Is it the height of their heels that gives me vertigo? The island breeze eases the heat.

Everyone is framing or posing for photos. Oh, not us, tourists lingering in the shade of umbrella’d tables; not us, securely separate, eloquent in silence. We are just here to look.