Allegra sits in her red suit, her pose
suggesting Italian lace, her smile
turned toward a half-captured audience.
My mother danced with royalty, she says,
opening a scrapbook to photographs,
clippings, swatches of rich cloth.

She hears beyond
the kitchen sounds and holiday laughter
the rest of us perceive. Allegra
is surrounded by the almost-royal
of an Italian court. She leans forward
to tell her stories of intrigue and gallantry.

It does not matter now that listeners
one by one escape her voice, her grown children
exchanging glances, grandchildren knowing
no one listens when Nonna speaks.
Alone, Allegra drifts between Italian
and English, from royal court to the house

on Elm Street where she marked Latin papers
and entertained salesmen and engineers –
friends of her husband – smiling into
their eyes, dreaming they kissed her hand.
Somewhere her children slept, their insistent
voices silent, their petitions postponed