NaPoWriMo: "Padre Castaldi Saw Me for a Second"
All the way down the hallway,
Padre Castaldi would announce himself,
tapping time with his cane, yelling,
“BASTA! . . . BASTA! . . . BASTA!”
Casa di Cura San Rossore in Pisa, in Italy —
They put me there after I cracked up,
walking down the street in my nightgown,
muttering to myself, unresponsive to friends
because I’d hallucinated The Void coming after me...
Padre Castaldi and I were on the same floor.
He liked me for some reason.
He would TapYell his way down the hall,
come in my room, and check if I was there.
He would yell “BASTA!”, tap-tap-tap, and move on.
I was beyond caring. The high voltage
of a hard marriage had burnt through my body,
buzzing past my will to live and curdling
what was left.
But one day, I surprised the diminished priest.
I had a little wooden recorder with me
(who knows why), and a melody came through
me to meet the rhythm of his tapping cane.
A tiny moment of fun between us.
A tiny moment of contact.
A split second of you see me? (mi vedi?)
For an instant, we watched each other
from inside our sicknesses.
And all was well.