Alexis Rotella
Deep Roots
Calla lilies
the colors
of dusk
As young Tina readies to board ship for America with her parents and younger sister, she is forbidden to embark due to a contagious eye disease. Tina who has never been separated from her family is escorted away by nuns, relatives who will look after her needs for sixteen long years.
From balcony to balcony
the twists and turns
of a grapevine
She knows who we are, the withered woman draped in black from shawl to shoe. Sure-footed, she approaches down the sage-scented path.
With fingers that know hard work, she touches my husband’s face, repeats in amazement il figlio di Tina, il figlio di Tina (son of Tina). In a dialect familiar to my husband’s ear, she tells us his mother was her dearest friend until her father came one October night to steal her away.
MaMa Papa
the names she never
got to speak
The widow pulls a tatted handkerchief from her deep pocket, a silver dollar tightly knotted within–a momento from the childhood friend she would never see or talk with again.
From its crater
the faraway glow
of Etna
About the Author
Alexis Rotella lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, with her ginger boy cat, Colby.