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11 Walking on Ashes We dared, we went just the same, our eyes enormous and blameless in the bright mustard light of Rome. Wet beside the ashes of Pompeii, under the shadow of Vesuvius, we stumbled through deep drifts of cinders. We kept up, kept walking through their ruined kitchens, past their altars swept clean of offerings, past the phalli still guarding the blasted doorways. Through sun and rain we kept up, alongside the bodies caught asleep or stunned or staring. Kept up until we reached the healing shining waters off the Amalfi coast. And so we were briefly undismayed, grateful to absorb its excess, the bravely balanced houses, churches yanked toward heaven by their blue-gold mosaic domes, ropes of garlic, tomatoes, peppers piled spicy red against the blue sea. We flexed our legs and kept up. We climbed the streets and wide steps of Positano, always turning, cognizant of the vast sea behind us, the distant continent, the monumental size of these distractions. On your thigh that small button the color of dirty blood grew bigger, and we both knew we were going back to the rest— malevolent seedlings boiling, already bursting, flowing in rivulets under your skin. ...

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