Sveva

She had lowered her gaze.

Her hair 

slid gently over her shoulders.

It brushed her arm, got lost for a moment, 

then swayed and stopped with her

watching that long and silent void.

Sveva was staring straight ahead.

Even the sea was still

And so she remained immersed in that silence  

dark and serene
before heading back home.

The road wasn’t long and as she pedaled she felt the night flowing around her. The sound of the tires on the asphalt. The faint chatter in the distance. The many fears tangled in that short ride
and pouring all over her.

The fear that nothing would ever be enough or that she’d never be enough for what she wanted.

The fear of being alone
with the messages waiting for her
on her drained phone
on that road far from the sea and home,
halfway up a hill
that wasn’t any place at all.

“Be careful because you’re a beautiful girl. Be careful because at night on that road you’re alone.” Exactly, Sveva thought now. “Anyway don’t worry, I won’t sleep until you’re back. Just call and I’ll come. And tonight if you want, take the car, we’re not going anywhere anyway. You know how your father is.”

Her mother waited up for her every night. She’d fall asleep on the couch, under a blanket with her phone in hand. When Sveva got home she’d move quietly, go to the couch and pause the episode of whatever series she was watching. She’d take the headphones off her ears and wake her up to tell her she could go to bed.

At her age maybe it was strange to still live with her parents. Or maybe not. Many of her friends were still at home. Many had given up on the idea that there was a life beyond those rooms.

Meanwhile
Meanwhile she had seen the shadow of her grown-up body moving through the house in silence, so as not to wake her parents. And she’d looked for a place to hide where no light could reach.

It wasn’t easy to say what the elsewhere they longed for was. It wasn’t easy to say if it was just about finding a job or something more. They had stopped wondering what it might be. They lived,
somehow.

Meanwhile she walked through the dark house and went to the bathroom. She couldn’t shower, it was too late. Her head was spinning. She remembered she had to charge her phone. Where was the charger? In her room. Not in her room. She’d gone back to the living room. Looked around. Searched among the books left on the coffee table.

Nothing.

Her mother had heard her from a distance though.

“If you’re looking for something to eat, it’s in the kitchen. I left something on the table for you. Eat before bed. With all the cycling you’re doing every day you’re getting too skinny.” Silence. “Sweetheart, then go to sleep…”

Her father had said something, but she hadn’t heard it.

In the kitchen there was the artichoke pie they’d had last Sunday. Perfect before bed. Sveva thought that at this point, if she was going to feel sick anyway, she might as well open a beer too—but held back. She checked the fridge. An opened Coca Cola. Probably from Sunday too.

Luckily, when she woke up, there’d be no boy next to her. She laughed silently. There hadn’t been any boys for a while.

Why had she broken up with Andre?

Fede always said the real question was: “Why didn’t you break up sooner?” Or rather… “How the fuck did you put up with him for that long?” Usually she’d also add: “... I would’ve dumped someone like that in a month, actually I wouldn’t have even bothered in the first place…”

They’d been together for nearly three years. He could probably give a more precise count. She settled for a rough estimate.

A friend of hers once said that just being together for three years was already a good outcome at their age. Sveva had pointed out that she and her boyfriend had been together for four. “Sveva don’t be a pain in the ass… it was just something I said to cheer you up…” She’d forgotten Chiara was to be listened to
without answering back.

She looked around as she ate. Smell of leeks. Her mother must have made a soup with potatoes and zucchini. Probably for dinner. She usually hand-made the croutons. She scanned the kitchen to see if any were left. By the sink, she saw a deep plate covered with another plate. She lifted it and

Ta daaannnn!
Her mother’s croutons,
fresh, dry, oregano-dusted

and super salty

Perfect to go with the flat Coca Cola at that hour of the night.

In the silence of the empty kitchen, she replayed the evening in her mind. The clunk of the lock as she chained her bike behind the wall. Samira walked past her to get inside. They’d never become friends. Had a few drinks after shifts, but without saying much. She knew she had a son
or maybe a daughter. Lived far from the restaurant. Came by car. Drove an old gray Volkswagen, once gave her a ride home. It was raining so hard, it was impossible to bike. They’d been silent and when they arrived she thanked her under the rain, shutting the door quickly.

They worked well together. Neither of them had any intention of being a waitress forever. In the various restaurants they’d worked in, the pay was always low and often completely under the table. Paid by the shift or hired with seasonal or agricultural contracts. Short jobs, paid as little as possible.

At her last restaurant, when Sveva asked what to do if she got sick, the owner replied that she worked part-time.

She had the other half of the day to stay in bed and puke.

Every now and then she’d joke with her friends about that episode or the many others she’d lived through over the years.

The girls who worked in the dining room had to watch out for the customers, the ones in the kitchen for their coworkers. A friend of hers was the only female cook in her restaurant and spent her nights listening to crude jokes while she worked.

By now it was background noise, like pots clanking on burners or oven doors slamming, but it was constant, oppressive. A slow poison that over time drained them drop by drop.

No malice.
Nothing personal.
They’re just jokes.
You know how we are.

A list of lines and glances laid out along the counter,
like the chopped vegetables prepared for the evening’s service.

Then she’d gotten up. Left everything where it was and gone to her room. Two thirty-seven. She replied to a few messages. How many would be pissed off at those messages? How many were still awake?

Maybe she was the only one who’d forgotten that every day starts with a sunrise.

VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Silence.

VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Silence.

Sveva had opened her eyes. She hadn’t moved right away. Like most days, she had woken up with Zelda lying on her head and back pain. The two things weren’t directly connected, but sleeping with a cat on top didn’t help.

Now Zelda was staring at her with one eye open. She was probably wondering whether she could sleep or had to wait for Sveva to decide what to do. Being woken up more than once was something that really annoyed her. Each time she had to stretch, turn, and find a new position. A terrible hassle for a cat like her, who would then spend most of the day in the neighbors’ gardens, reminding other cats that it was her territory.

Sveva had stretched out her hand from the bed. On the floor was her phone, charging. When she forgot to turn off the vibration and a message arrived, even the tile near the bed would vibrate. Super annoying. She unlocked the screen in the dim room.

She didn’t hear any noise outside the door.

Telegram. Who’s messaging at this hour… I was sleeping…

Fede “Awake?” 7:43

Shit. It was Fede. Sveva had placed the phone back on the floor beside the bed. The cat had turned over, annoyed. She had found a new position curled up against her head and gone back to sleep. Sveva, breathing in her fur, had joined her shortly after.

Sveva “I was sleeping...” 9:52

Sveva “I finished my shift late yesterday…” 10:10
Sveva “I saw the photos you posted from the party on IG… nice… but who were you with?” 10:10
Sveva “(Hot guy…) Who was he? Matti’s brother?” 10:10

Fede “Fuck… were you still in bed? Don’t your parents give you hell for sleeping all that time?” 10:10

Sveva “Mind your own business? 🙂” 10:10

Fede “Yeah the guy is super hot… but that’s not why I messaged… I’ll tell you later…” 10:10

Sveva “Ok…. so?” 😂 10:10

Sveva had waited a while, sitting on the bed, to see if a reply would come. Then she got up. Fede was one of her best friends. Years ago, she was one of the many who had decided to leave. She had managed to find a job in Milan.

She lived with other girls in a rather old house far from the center. Sveva had never gone to visit her and Fede complained every time. They’d see each other when she came down for Christmas and in the summer.

Sveva “Come oooonnnnnnnnn…. Snap ouuuuttt of iiiit…” 12:34

Fede “Don’t break my balls, I found you a solution… I’ll send a voice message later… I’m busy now… fuck, it’s not like everyone sleeps all day like you… 😂” 12:35

Fede was unbearable. Even before moving to Milan. Now she worked as a designer in a studio and had become truly unbearable. Still better than Giulia. She had actually become some kind of manager.

“Hi Svevy… no look, today I really can’t send you the photos you asked for… because I’m super busy with the new job… you know now I’m in a bigger department and I manage a lot of resources… sometimes I wake up at night and wonder how I manage to keep up with all this…” That was Giulia’s latest voice message a few days ago. For Sveva, it wasn’t hard to figure out how Giulia did her job. She was a bitch. Period. In Milan, she had fit right in. “No… but it’s fine Giuly… I know you’re super busy with your job…” There was always a strong inconsistency between what she thought and what her messages said, Sveva thought.

In the afternoon, Fede’s voice message arrived.

“Oooohhhh… Sorry about earlier, but I was with a friend we went out with and she was totally freaking out. Her guy’s a first-class asshole. Whatever, I’ll tell you later if you want. Anyway, she’s fucked up too…” In her voice notes, Fede spoke with no logical thread. Minutes of complaints and stories about people Sveva didn’t know and didn’t give a shit about. “Anyway… I’m thinking of changing apartments, to move closer to the new office I’m at now… And the room would be free… The price is really low and the girls are really super chill… more or less… but whatever… I’ll explain later if you want…” That was another trait of Fede’s voice notes. The “If you want later…”

“You were saying you were thinking of coming to Milan to turn your situation around ‘cause at home you’re about to shoot yourself…” Those weren’t exactly the words Sveva had used, but Fede was really good at interpreting things her own way… “If you’re interested… Let me know so I can tell the girls to contact you… Just hurry up… Otherwise, they’ve got another friend who might take the room… I mean I’d be pissed to give the bed to another bitch… If you take it, I'll be happier…”

“… another bitch…” Clashed with the sentence “… the girls are really super chill…” But Fede’s judgment didn’t count for much. Probably the only real bitch was her.

But Fede had already been a bitch when she lived in the village. She hadn’t needed to leave, unlike Giuly.

A few nights later they had a Meet call. Fede was sitting on her bed. Behind her, on the wall, was a horrid poster that said Lovegang126. Sveva had learned not to talk about music with Fede. Each of them knew the other couldn’t make a decent Spotify playlist.

“Hey Fe… How’s it going?”

“Bad Sve… Shitty day… But don’t stress me talking about today… I’m going out later and I need to be in a good vibe…” Fede looks around, there must be two or three girls in the room with her. Sveva doesn’t ask questions, Fede couldn’t answer anyway. Too many people around. She only sees her eyes darting to the right occasionally. She seems annoyed.

“Fe… I’ll take the room, but I need to figure out how the fuck to pay for it… These past months I’ve been on LinkedIn looking at ads, but nothing… You know that thing where you’re overqualified for what they’re asking?… Fuck… I think it’s true…” Fede jumps to the other side. Her home’s internet must be crap. Sometimes she freezes in poses that, if Sveva screenshot and shared them in group chats, Fede would have killed her.

Maybe Fede hadn’t heard anything. But she knew her. She knew exactly what she was complaining about. “Sve I know your fucking degree you could’ve skipped… at least you wouldn’t cry over dumping Andre…” She laughs, the bitch.

Exactly. She hadn’t even heard her, but she knew exactly where to strike to fold her in two.

Sveva had a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata. Applied Arts. Illustration and Comics.

“Sve did you ever apply your art?” Sveva jokes with Fede and pretends to be offended… “Fuck off…” They laugh, lost among the noise of the girls in Fede’s room and the screen freezing now and then.

“No… listen bitch… I told you… full of shitty people… and you know I preferred to come back home…” Sveva looks away from the screen. Stops smiling for a moment. Gets lost in her thoughts.

Fede is the truth that crashes into you without sending a message first.
Maybe that’s exactly why she likes her.

But she also likes her because when Fede notices she’s lost, she says: “Sve… snap out of it… Fede calling Sveva… Fede calling Sveva… Hey…” Bitch but sweet. “About work, I have several friends here working in studios. I could ask. I’ll find you a job. I’ll ask about part-time. Working eight hours you’d die… you wouldn’t make it…” Sweet but such a bitch.

“Thanks Fe… Definitely part-time ‘cause if I come up, I’ll enroll at IED like I told you… this time I want to try Interaction Design… three years and it should look better on a CV than Illustration and Comics…” Fede never misses a chance for a: “Fuck, you still haven’t taken that off your CV?” They laugh.

“Anyway Sve… I gotta go… ‘cause it’s getting crazy in here… send me a CV without the degree, it looks bad, and tell me when you’re arriving so I can set things up…” Sveva stays still for a moment. She’s really doing this. “Thanks Fe.”

“Sve if I don’t help you, you’re screwed and you know it…” They laugh again.

Years ago,
on the school steps.

She was sitting, watching summer slowly slip into the evening. The shutters down on the classroom windows and the empty parking lot.
No one was with her.

The large lime trees in the parking lot in front and the sound of leaves rustling in the wind. They were a veil between her and the world beyond that school. They sheltered her from what was coming next.

Her bike was under those trees, waiting for her. But she still wanted to sit a while longer and watch. To capture every last fragment.

The color of the tiles,
the aged and rusty handrail,
the roof with uneven tiles
and the faded color of the walls.

She had gone to pick up her diploma certificate after finishing her high school exams. She might never return. It seemed almost unbelievable that those stairs where she had shouted, kissed, slept would no longer be hers. Not just because she was going to university and would live in a room far from home. But also because her school was going to be demolished.

It was the final year.

An old school in the middle of the village.
A perfect place to build a parking lot.

And it was striking to see that the walls, the shutters, the railings, the white marble window sills, were now all the same color:
the color of rubble.

Maybe they had been dressing that way for a while, coloring themselves as they should to become demolished debris. Years and years of history reduced to junk, carried away load by load to the landfill.

What would happen to every kiss she had given on those stairs?

And so she sat there,
clinging to her memories. She watched summer and people pass by in the distance. She inhaled the sweet scent of lime in the air, and beyond the broken gate, in front of the parking lot, she saw friends who used to visit her at school. The parked cars and dogs running into the courtyard barking.

The boys leaned out the windows laughing, while Gio’s girlfriend ran to catch Tarlo, a months-old puppy who hadn’t realized school had started.

She laughed. She laughed and thought that standing up from those stairs would mean it’s over.

She knew it was impossible to stop time.
Evening would come
and knock on her back
to remind her that time cannot be stopped.

But you can know it’s the last time, and hold onto everything—or almost everything—about that final moment. Now she was feeling the same thing in her room, a room she knew she would return to, but changed.

To her left the mirror mercilessly showed her how loaded she was. She had said she would travel light. Maybe bring more things later. But the backpack on her shoulders hadn’t been enough and now she also held two large duffel bags in her hands.

At the dinner the night before, the aunts and a cousin had come. Finally, she too had her farewell dinner, the one all her friends always laughed about. In Milan they would’ve said, "Taaaccccc! Done, folks."

She was ready to leave.

“Bitch… get the fuck out of that damn bathroom!”

A bang on the door. “... Merde…”

Another one.

And another.

“Fille de pute! ...” The bathroom door shook. “... Je t'avais déjà dit de ne pas rester fermée tout ce temps!”

Sveva had just raised her head for a moment. She had been putting up with her for almost three years. At first, she used to be scared when she heard Anouk yelling from outside. She feared the door might fall on her while she was sitting on the toilet.

She used to imagine herself stuck there, pants down, while big men in uniform came to rescue her. She thought about how embarrassing it would be to be trapped like that, under the door lying across her.

Everyone said Anouk was as beautiful as she was a bitch.

They were definitely right about the second part, Sveva thought.

With arched eyebrows and bangs brushing against her eyes, she stood still and listened to the silence. She tried to understand if Anouk had decided the siege on the bathroom was over or if she was looking for something to break the door down.

Anouk had a younger sister. Her name was Aurélie.

Last summer, she came to visit. She spoke to Sveva for a while when Anouk had gone downstairs to pick up some Lebanese takeout.

“Anouk, qu'est-ce qu'on mange aujourd'hui?” When she and the guy behind the counter talked, you couldn’t understand shit.

Aurélie had told her that her sister wasn’t a bitch, she was just borderline.

“What the fuck is that?”

Sveva had replied, thinking that now the bitch even had an excuse—for all those times she barged into her room and turned her bed upside down looking for her lighter.

She had tried to tell her that she didn’t smoke and didn’t give a damn about her fucking lighter. But Anouk had replied: “Fake good girls like you are the real bitches… At least if you were honest, you’d tell me what you think of me… Fuck, everyone in this house knows you piss yourself when you see me walk by…”

She had seasoned the slow sentence that followed with a look of deep hatred: “Dis-moi ce que tu penses, merde…”

Sometimes Sveva thought about moving out, but then she’d drop it. Anouk went in phases. Often, just ordering a Kibbeh nayeh from the Lebanese guy was enough to become best friends again for two or three days.

And for Sveva
and the bathroom door
two or three days
were enough
to breathe.

She wouldn’t know how, but she had learned to survive. “Everyone changes in Milan as soon as they get off the train or the plane,” Malik used to say. Sveva disagreed. She thought it was a slow process, something that just happened. Maybe it was simply a survival instinct.

“Here, you either change or you die, guys…” Clio always said. And then came the usual line: “The meat grinder switches on the moment you set your fucking foot on the ground. It sucks you in, fuck… But where do you go the moment you arrive?…”

A pause. She looked around at the others.

Waited until everyone was looking at her
and then: “In the subway… figa…” Clio had picked up the accent. You could hardly tell she had still lived on one of those many shitty southern hills just a year earlier.

More than the meat grinder, Sveva thought of a blender. Confused words and moments with no before or after, piled up chaotically in her mind.

What the fuck did she even know about what Kibbeh nayeh was?
And yet
now she had even learned the correct pronunciation. The guy at the counter would say: “Parfait!”

And that Parfait in her mind sat next to Kibbeh nayeh. With no real distinction. Maybe those two words, those two memories in her mind, talked to each other in French, without her even knowing.

Those two distant words would go home with her.

They would sleep in her bed, next to her cat, who had kept sleeping on her pillow for nearly three years. Would Zelda be happy to see her back? She’d never figured out if the cat slept with her out of affection or just to say the pillow was hers.

Going back home. Three years had gone by quickly.

Now she had two degrees to hide when applying for jobs.

She laughed. Laughed because she was slowly turning into one of those many professionals on LinkedIn complaining about being too qualified for the roles they applied for.

Sveva wasn’t even thirty and she was already preparing to pretend to be unqualified enough to deserve a job.

On her phone, a long list of lost contacts remained—Insta, LinkedIn, TikTok, and more.
 

Chats of groups of friends. Chats of groups of friends of friends. Chats from dinners that were supposed to be just for that one night. Chats she had been added to by mistake. Chats where she had written things she shouldn’t have.
The moms' chat from the preschool
of a colleague at the firm she worked for.

What the fuck was she doing in that chat?

And then there was Vera.

She, her long red hair, and the nighttime smell of ginseng were the scent of those three years. She was

she was everywhere, in every moment Sveva remembered. They had never thought of getting a room in the same house. They met when they could. They had lunch and dinner together so many times. Laughed at that distant world they lived in.

They had loved each other in their own way.
They had loved each other in ways they hadn’t yet learned how to.

Then Vera lost her job and couldn’t find another. Milan

Milan wasn’t willing to wait for her, and Vera had to go back home. She always said the balance of her life was:

Salary = Rent + Condo fees + IED: Fashion Design + Sveva

Now that one side of the equation was gone, the other couldn’t stand on its own.

So they said goodbye, cried together, told each other they’d see each other again. They made sure to say everything you’re supposed to say when you part ways. When you don’t know—or maybe you do—that you won’t see each other again.

And Sveva thought of her while packing her bags. While deciding what to take home and what to leave in Milan.

The day she met her wasn’t by chance. She was nervous. No, terrified. Scared to death. Alone on the bus taking her to school, to IED.

She was finally about to start the Interaction Design course. It was ironic—at that moment, she didn’t want to interact with anyone. She felt unprepared and completely out of place on that bus.

On the ride from home to school, Vera had just been a small head far away, with long red hair
beautiful,

but distant.

She saw her swaying in the crowd. She looked restless, with her head against the window, like she wanted to get off and run away.

Sveva understood perfectly.

She too wanted to get off. To go home and tell Anouk that she and her toilet and her lighters could go fuck themselves.

Go back to her parents and shut it all down. Pretend she’d never left. Pretend she didn’t care anymore and that the only thing that mattered was getting by like everyone else. Like all those people messaging her on Telegram or Insta telling her it was fine. They would’ve left too if they could. They too would’ve wanted the guts to do what she had done. The guts.

Fuck, how was it even possible that even her friends wrote her “the guts”?

But no. She had left and now was on that bus, soaked in smells, designer perfumes, leather jackets, hair sprays, laundry detergent. Smells of people who, like her, were getting ready to face the world and wanted a piece of it for themselves. A fucking little piece of the world to plant their flag in. To die and say that even if it didn’t matter, that square meter had been theirs, for what it was worth.

“Excuse me, are you getting off?”

Sveva hadn’t heard. She had her headphones in. Spotify Premium. Arlo Parks. The world could fuck off for a few minutes.

The man in front of her motioned with his hand. He looked annoyed. Sveva wondered what he wanted. She took out one earbud.

“I asked if you're getting off…” He pointed to the door behind her.

“No, I’m not getting off…” Sveva stepped aside, raised an eyebrow, and put the earbud back in. Arlo Parks went back to vomiting her fears into her ears.

When the bus turned right, the man next to her stumbled into her. She held onto the overhead handle, but slipped against the woman sitting in front of her. The first time, she hadn’t held her bag tightly and it had bumped into the woman’s arm.

Now the woman stared at her bag like it was a wild animal ready to attack.

She looked tense, like she was trying to predict where the next blow would come from. To Sveva, she had the same eyes as her cat when hunting lizards in the garden.

Still,
ears tilted back,
hidden in low grass,
with the look of someone playing the role of the predator.

Sveva had even thought of letting go of the bag to see if the woman was a better hunter than her cat. But she didn’t have the energy to argue that morning. So she resisted the chaotic impulse and pressed the bag tightly to herself.

Then the bus turned right again, slowed down, and there was the school entrance. The glass doors opened. Someone got off, and now it was her turn. In the noise of the engine and traffic, in the words of people rushing past the open doors, she had to find the strength to step down.

That really was her stop. She just had to take a step and step into a new chapter of life, one that had now brought her far from home.

One step.
Just one.

When she touched the ground
and heard the doors close behind her
she thought she could no longer run away
or say
she hadn’t made it in time.

Her life was now in front of her.

Well, not quite. 

Her life was to her left. 

When she got off, she hadn’t noticed that the girl with the beautiful long red hair had taken that same step, with the same fear.

That girl too found herself in front of the school entrance, thinking the same thoughts. Maybe the two of them wouldn’t overcome the fear they felt, but by looking at each other
first briefly
then in the eyes
they understood they were no longer alone.

Now

Now she wasn’t there with her. She wouldn’t be at the platform to say goodbye as she left. She wouldn’t get off the train with her back in their hometown,
maybe this time from the same door, without fear.

Vera would remain a memory, suspended between memories of those years.

A
scent
or maybe a color
you don’t forget.

And then

And then Sveva becomes stairs.
And then road.

And then subway,
red and green line.

And then escalators.
And then tapis roulant. While Vera and everything else remain around her.

Steps and platform nine
Train announcement

Three short steps
Smell of trabocco
And sound of wooden planks worn down by wind
Where the sea can’t reach

Sveva stands still
Time on that train is suspended in silence.

The next station.
The tunnels.
The muffled steps along the corridor.
The sound of pages turning in a book.

The tap tap and again the tap tap. Long fake nails on the screen.

Around her, the gazes of men and women beyond the trees and houses, rushing past in front of them. High-voltage lines rising and falling quickly.

The long still sprinklers
in the middle of wheat fields. They waited for summer’s heat to show themselves to the world passing on those trains. She too had waited and had gone. She had had her summer. She would have others. But for now it is only autumn.

A boy and a girl play tavla, defying the physics of the train. Now and then they laugh. Sveva watches them and sees her sister, far from her. She too is enjoying her summer in some Milan around Europe.

She lowers her gaze, smiles, and thinks back to the evenings with her ex-boyfriend she had left. Evenings with him and their friends playing old board games.

He may still live with his parents in one of those houses that, seen from afar, all together, seem like something. Maybe not to her who lives a few houses beyond the walls. Those that can’t be seen from down the hill and aren’t in the photos. In Milan he used to say: “See that little house, a bit orange in the back… there… two houses behind that’s where mine are…”

Now she’s going to that house. More precisely to her room, in that house. She’s not going back to disappear. She’s not going back to give up. Only to breathe and think what to do next. What the next destination might be.

Brushing her fingertips with her thumb she repeats these phrases because she wants to feel it. She wishes someone would say it to her now.

But there is no one.

And so she repeats it again and again. Breathes these words and gets lost in hope.

She is not
going back
to
stay.

Sveva 

who had left not to return. Sveva, who was supposed to travel the world and had left because maybe she didn’t want to stay.

Sveva,
who on her olive bike
rode up and down flowering hills

that in winter were still stones
sitting to watch the sea.

Sveva,
who on her olive bike

watched the nets hung in the sun

that hadn’t left with her

and were waiting for her.