More on: Venice

The whole city floats beneath our feet. Arched bridges hold it together, we say, lulled into dreams and into each other’s arms, window open to soft lapping. And at dawn a dove coos, two eggs loose on the bare windowsill. We arrived by air in Rome, then the train on rails over wooden posts driven…

for Murray Baumgarten At night, under wraps, often none too soon, the ghetto gave up what it must—bodies rowed in silence across the long lagoon. Bora winds scattered dust on canvas shrouds intended to disguise Venetian Jews as freighted cargos—to ward off spit and stones. Dust and water, all the ablution Venice would bestow, faceless…