Stair
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I walk up the stairs to my fourth-floor apartment, all alone. I let myself into my tiny little studio, all alone. I shut the door behind me. Another solitary bedtime in Rome. Another long night’s sleep ahead of me, with nobody and nothing in my bed except a pile of Italian phrasebooks and dictionaries. I am alone, I am all alone, I am completely alone. Grasping this reality, I let go of my bag, drop to my knees and press my forehead against the floor. There, I offer up to the universe a fervent prayer of thanks. First in English. Then in Italian. And then—just to get the point across—in Sanskrit.
—Eat Pray Love
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Poem: From the Tower at the Top of the Winding Stairs
Poem: The Patience of Ordinary Things
Poem: An Improvement in Stairs
Poem: Four Directions to the Zoo
Poem: Down By the Carib Sea (VI: Sunset in the Tropics)
Poem: To Juliette, six years old