Simona Carini
Survival Time
by Simona Carini
ISBN: 9798985524246 —
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Simona Carini was born in Perugia, Italy. She writes poetry and nonfiction and has been published in various venues, in print and online. Her first poetry collection Survival Time was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions (2022). She lives in Northern California with her husband, loves to spend time outdoors, and works as an academic researcher. Her website is https://simonacarini.com
My Father’s Breakfast
He liked to start on the trail early, before the August heat
smothered the forest smells. The soil parched,
our soles grating against stones, the leaves of holm oaks
baked and brittle. On his shoulder, a canvas bag
carrying ingredients to prepare panzanella.
The heel of a two-day-old loaf for him, two slices for me,
tomatoes from a villager’s vegetable garden,
the smell of sun on their red-green skin,
basil leaves from my aunt’s pot and a small Coca-Cola bottle
half-filled with an emulsion of olive oil and vinegar.
Conversation turned into a monologue as he eased
into storytelling, a small crack in his voice:
hiking to the same spot with his best friends
before the war, all young, all alive.
The area around the spring moist, the earth dark chocolate,
small tufts of grass like gemstones. Cold water streamed
thinly from the mouth of a pipe into a rock-bounded pool,
disappeared, absorbed by the thirsty ground. The air
crisp and cool, as if we’d stepped into a cave.
He lined up the ingredients on a flat stone, using the bag
as a mat, talked on, about how to wet the bread to soften it
without it falling apart. He turned each piece slowly
under the stream, crust facing the water, shook to drain it,
laid it back on the bag. There was no hurrying him.
He halved the tomatoes, brushed their cut surface on the bread
while squeezing to release the juice. A few slivers of basil,
a sprinkle of salt, a generous drizzle of the olive oil and vinegar:
each step measured. I wasn’t allowed to comment or touch,
only listen and watch, my father’s recipe for learning anything.
At his signal, I chopped the tomatoes, layered them
on my portion, then bit into the panzanella, the bread soft, spongy,
the smell of basil and vinegar tickling my nose, while he remarked,
head shaking, he didn’t like tomatoes that much, only their juice.
The one food he ever prepared for me,
precious to him, didn’t bring us closer.
Decades later, my mother dead, he injured, what I cooked
seemed hard for him to swallow. At every meal he reminded me
“For all her faults, your mother was an excellent cook.”
I’d move to the sink, run hot water to wash the dishes,
scald my hands to feel a different pain,
save myself from falling into the chasm between us.
In a nightmare, I see myself acting the same way
with a beloved one. The smell of sun on tomato skin
makes me wish for an embrace of light to flood the forest.
