Painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
In Umbria
Once upon a time
I was sitting outside the cafe
watching twilight in Umbria
when a girl came out of the bakery
with the bread her mother wanted.
She did not know what to do.
Already bewildered by being thirteen
and just that summer a woman,
she now had to walk past the American.
But she did fine.
Went by and around the corner
with style, not noticing me.
Almost perfect.
At the last instant could not resist
darting a look
down at her new breasts.
Often I go back
to that dip of her head
when people talk about this one
or that one of the great beauties.
Jack Gilbert
Posted over on American Poems
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