swifts & s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings
On the Zattere
Stephanie V Sears
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On the Zattere
Just before noon strikes…
The sea homes in on the city
bearing worlds, high standards
on sun’s smoldering waves.An influx of scents and designs,
twirling side plots to the lagoonal play.
Damasks of anima, velvets of yearning
reach into dark-lane workshops.In noon’s scintilla of beauty
ripples slowly vocalize
craft’s ample task over there
on the shaded sedulous side.While this shore’s stellar body
brightens to the flat distance
bluing between towers
high with far-flung glee.People grow celestial,
free their minds of gravity.
Light-sparkled tiaras ride every head
walking the Zattere Agli Incurabili.On domes wings shudder with gold,
while Giudecca, cast in brick,
shrouded in labor, time-tickets
artistry into its factories.
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Stephanie V Sears is a French and American ethnologist (Doctorate EHESS, Paris 1993), free-lance journalist, essayist , short story writer, and poet whose poetry recently appeared in The Comstock Review, Clementine Unbound, The Non-Conformist Magazine, SORTES, New Contrast Expanded Field, Lunaris, Fleas on the Dog, The Crank, the Cannon’s Mouth, The Sunflower Collective, Handsome.ng (pending). Short-listed in 2009 for a Pushcart Prize. Her first book of poetry: ‘The Strange Travels of Svinhilde Wilson’ was published by Adelaide Book in 2020. Her second poetry book ‘Anaho’ was published by Arteidolia Press, NY in 2023.