Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Florentine Bathroom Stalls


They say that Florence is the city of art, but what they don't tell you is that even the bathroom stall graffiti is poetic. On our honeymoon this September, Dave and I had the joy of visiting the city. Once we strolled around the Duomo and fought our way through the throngs of tourists, we moseyed on over to the Pitti Palace, the long-ago country home of the Medici family.

After making our way through the gardens and museums, we stopped briefly to take advantage of the museum's upscale WC before continuing on our way.

This is what I read on the back of the door in traditional black sharpie graffiti:


And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.

And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

I recognized the poem as "Late Fragment" by Raymond Carver, one of my favorite poets. I wonder if every American tourist feels this way when they set foot in the WC of the Pitti Palace. Florence...what a dream...what a feeling...

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