Piazza San Marco

Imagine for yourself what was in my heart
I was in Venice for the very first time
Piazza San Marco
With a thousand lire in my pocket
About a thousand lire
The pigeons were drunk on music
You know Venice better than I do
You know the Italians
Their music their pigeons
I was totally adrift
At nine o’clock it suddenly occurred to me
That I hadn’t eaten since the day before
The day before I had an orange for lunch
I stop a woman
She keeps on going
I’m lucky I bump into another
She laughs I laugh
But even before I have a line
ready in my mind
I remember I’m in Italy
And don’t know the language
I catch a pigeon by the wing
It claps me on my hat and flies off
Imagine for yourself
What was in my heart
I was in Venice for the very first time
With a thousand lire in my pocket

Jean-Piere Rosnay (French poet)