A stranger asked the time, clearly

Asking for my time. I decided to try

To live a little and his aperture

Shuddered open, let in

Me and light. We played keep away

With the language he kept

Speaking anyway. I was a student,

Could not balance on those cobblestones.

We walked. We walked. Time

Unable to be looked at directly.

Mi piaci molto, molto. To say

He liked me was not true

Enough. We’d met minutes ago,

Half hour, forty-five—Come,

Said his hand, I know a beautiful

Place. I smelled where horses

Had been worked sick. Like

Money and musk. Through this

To another: Piazza del Mercato, no

Races, only goods and wares. He said

He spoke Spanish if it was easier.

Vista over quilt-knit hills, ruffled

Rows of growing heads. Sex, too,

The absence of horses, it smelled,

Too, like sex. Tuscany all green

Or wanting to be. A vineyard I knew,

Floor of living grass I had woven

Myself through, had once been taken

There for goats, for table

Wine: now we saw that vineyard,

Smaller than I’d known it, and he

Kissed my face, kissed me.

He forgot three languages when

I said no. No, you have

The wrong idea. No you can’t

Call me later. Yes I know

You like me so, so much. I’m sorry

I won’t let you and if you knew

Me at all you would regret not asking.

The pigeons understood me, said

Nothing useful. Horses were away,

Being blessed in a dark chapel,

Protection before the next big ask.

Anch’io. I do too. I like you.

It had been an awful

Race. The winner, her jockey toppled,

Had won alone. But nothing

Can be done about all that. I ran

Without looking back. But what

Was the idea I meant to have. Run

Until spit hangs like honey

Or come. Until the only him

Was a scent at my neck. Now

I look back. I have told

All this to you, and you think

I remember it fondly. Horses

Deserve each and every blessing.

He smells like there have never

Been horses there. Before us

The tower, medieval finger,

Plugs gaps in the air. Two boys

Split a bottle into glass.

—

Molly Williams is a queer, mixed/Black writer born and raised in northern New Jersey and based in Austin, TX. They received an MFA in fiction and poetry from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin and recently served as the Mari Sabusawa fellow at American Short Fiction. They are currently at work on a first novel. Molly can be found at https://mollyvwilliams.com/.