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Ruth Holzer

Cefalu

Protected by its overhanging rock, the town spills down to the sparkling sea. Boys dive from the jagged cliffs, daring one another to leap from riskier heights. Their thin bodies slice through the air like swallows. The blood that quickens them is Sikel, Greek, Carthaginian, Norman. After the wars ended, this strategic headland lost its importance and turned into a backwater. Again and again, the boys fling themselves into the Tyrrhenian, shouting as they go.

vase painting—
a man hacks at a tuna
today