Clockwise Rain

and officials will greet us in gusts
of Italian we won’t understand.
Later, snug among other tourists,
we’ll slump over cocktails
and relate to each other
so gently the stars reflected
in the Mediterranean will smile
in full prismatic bloom.
The people and pets and estates
we abandoned will forget us
with a few last sighs except
for the books: their pages stirring
while our fingerprints subtly,
over many years, morph into text.