Rome

Kasper talks about The Zodiac cafe. Le Zodiaco. Where he sits at an outdoor table and sees all of Rome. “I THINK we WENT there!” yells mom, “when we were in Rome!” But he is the the only one who has been to this cafe. Very few, even in Rome, have been. It’s on the top of a hill.

When I was twenty in Indiana, I visited Kasper in Rome. While he worked away on his graphic design business and his asceticism I sat in the kitchen, journaling and waiting for his housemate, Tony, to sing through the threshold with a bag of fresh ingredients for his evening meal. He would run his thick hands through his black hair revealing the contours of his biceps and then reach into the paper bag to retrieve beautiful foods; never tiring of being Italian. And he would unveil some bottle of Good wine, and I would sigh, because I knew he would insist on sharing. Everything. I didn’t have to do anything but be shown how it is done. in Rome.

After dinner we would lean back and smoke hash. Then I’d traverse the cold marble floor to the moonlit bathroom with the clawfoot tub, and draw a bath, and sail. over Rome.