A Midsummer Day's Dream
La Striscia, Arezzo
10th April, 2026
All things stir awake again—
and true to her vernal vow,
the flower-fairy comes, as promised.
She follows the long, breathing vines,
descending in a hush upon hems and shoulders,
as though she would leave
a fleeting, pretty echo of herself.
She is the wash of watercolor
loosening into bloom in the spring of ’99,
unfurling upon Emanuel Ungaro;
she is the tender yellow fledgling of D&G, 2006—
a shell just broken, a life just begun,
at once rebirth, at once a meadow of daisies in bloom,
gathering along drifting silk
into whispers of lace.
Or else she is the fairy-gown
of Blumarine, spring–summer 2007:
lavender hems, uneven as dreamlight,
flickering beneath a mutable sun—
skipping, laughing,
until all at once she is returned
to that southern field of lavender,
flowering without end.
Spring does not stay—
yet in every wandering breeze
it lifts the skirt’s soft edge,
letting its brightness spill and wander,
bare and unguarded
before a boundless sea of bloom.
The fairytale of spring, 2026,
unfolds beneath the open day—
in the tremor of birdsong,
in the hush between winter and its yielding.
And I, beneath an apple tree
heavy with first blossoms,
fall into a lucid dream:
to become Hermia—
and with Lysander,
to dwell where love is simple,
and never wakes.
All things stir awake again—
and true to her vernal vow,
the flower-fairy comes, as promised.
She follows the long, breathing vines,
descending in a hush upon hems and shoulders,
as though she would leave
a fleeting, pretty echo of herself.
She is the wash of watercolor
loosening into bloom in the spring of ’99,
unfurling upon Emanuel Ungaro;
she is the tender yellow fledgling of D&G, 2006—
a shell just broken, a life just begun,
at once rebirth, at once a meadow of daisies in bloom,
gathering along drifting silk
into whispers of lace.
Or else she is the fairy-gown
of Blumarine, spring–summer 2007:
lavender hems, uneven as dreamlight,
flickering beneath a mutable sun—
skipping, laughing,
until all at once she is returned
to that southern field of lavender,
flowering without end.
Spring does not stay—
yet in every wandering breeze
it lifts the skirt’s soft edge,
letting its brightness spill and wander,
bare and unguarded
before a boundless sea of bloom.
The fairytale of spring, 2026,
unfolds beneath the open day—
in the tremor of birdsong,
in the hush between winter and its yielding.
And I, beneath an apple tree
heavy with first blossoms,
fall into a lucid dream:
to become Hermia—
and with Lysander,
to dwell where love is simple,
and never wakes.