Kaitlin Tan

Summer in Rome

Nestled inside the cavity of your ribs,
belting across those wide acres, the bell’s ring
is a shout you know well, only now
it seems fresh. It will sweep
the landscape
of your clay mind. Above, the arched trees, the reliefs
layered beneath pastel buildings. The packed stone.
The clipped tiles curled along terracotta roofs.
The water, still, down below. The flinching
lights, roving plexiglass clatter
of steel tracks winding along
the terraces. This will all turn
tangible — the bell toll,
a sound you can catch as it falls
over the city, a lapse of time into
new century. Your bones
are stone. The amphitheater
is a rush through your ears as you run
into the river. You will see
its echo blur the edges
of the city, of that self
that you used
to know. Allow
the ground
to shake
and rupture
under
the weight
of it — allow
something
new.

Kaitlin Tan (she/her) grew up between Manila, Philippines and Macao, SAR. She is a junior at Johns Hopkins University majoring in writing seminars and cognitive science, with a minor in visual arts. Her fiction has appeared in Contrary Magazine, Unlikely Stories, and Every Day Fiction. Her poetry can be found in Eunoia Review and Neologism Poetry Journal.