The Corso Buenos Aires by Tricia Marcella Cimera (LANDMARKS Series)

The Corso Buenos Aires
by Tricia Marcella Cimera

Famous long street in Milan,
I used to walk your length with my father.
Do you remember us?

In 1974 I was nine years old, skinny,
in love with Leonardo da Vinci,
living in your ancient city.

My father took me to behold
“The Last Supper.” We often
passed by La Scala, the Duomo.

But it’s you, Corso Buenos Aires,
that I think of. While my father
whistled wartime songs from 1945

(my dreams are getting better all the time),
I held his hand every night when
we went for a walk together.

Your shop lights shone on our faces,
do you remember us?
We were famous for our happiness.

PHOTO: Corso Buenos Aires (Milan, Italy, 1960s).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: My father appears frequently in my work. His life was like a beautiful poem, and I was lucky enough to be in it.  My family and I lived in Milan, Italy, for one glorious year in the 1970s. My dad was Vladimir (Val) Cimera. The reason he loved to whistle/sing songs from WWII was because American soldiers liberated his country, Czechoslovakia, in 1945 when he was 16, and he fell in love with all things American. Then he immigrated to the US.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tricia Marcella Cimera is a Midwestern poet with a worldview. Published works have appeared in places ranging from the Buddhist Poetry Review to The Ekphrastic Review.  Her micro-chapbook called GO SLOW, LEONARD COHEN was released through the Origami Poems Project.  One of her poems was pleased to receive a recent Pushcart Prize nomination. Tricia lives with her husband and family of animals in Illinois, in a town called St. Charles, by a river named Fox, with a Poetry Box in her front yard.

AUTHOR PHOTO CAPTION: In the Ogunquit Museum of American Art [OMAA] located in Ogunquit, Maine, one of my very favorite places in this big world.