All-Night Lingo Tango

Karen, David, and I Stop across the Streetfrom the Pitti Palace

Karen, David, and I Stop across the Street from the Pitti Palace In questi pressi fra il 1868 e il 1869 Fedor Mihailovic Dostoevskij compì il romanzo L’Idiota Knocking around after dinner atAllaVecchia Bettola in the cool Mediterranean evening, we are joined by Prince Myshkin, of all people, because a plaque above a little paper shop (quoted in the epigraph of this poem) tells us he was created here, or so it says.Writers are such liars, and I should know. Fact: until this moment I’d forgotten about the prince. It’s like theTV Western you watched with such rapture as a kid while eating a bowl ofTrix; you see a raccoon and suddenly remember the Lone Ranger’s mask. Jeez, and I lovedTonto. Heigh-Ho,Silver, I’m such a stale piece of crumb cake, because during the dark night of 1974, Myshkin held my hand, even though I was more like a shipwreck than a woman—mute, deaf, gnawing on my own heart as if it were meat, your words a match I lit to find this place—forever in your debt, Fedor Mihailovic Dostoevskij. 37 ...