We flay garlic of flimsy garments and release fish from salt bonds; black olives spit pips and bitten nails sting to the quick on vine-ripe canned pomodoro. Il pizzaiolo is in elbow deep, the silken lip of a caldera. A peasant blouse slips but Sophia Loren's provenance is no substitute. My patrone inspects la crema but locals prefer cappuccino after a pineapple pie's cheese drag avalanche. Il lazzarone raised the bar and whose eating street food now? Nick takes me on for leaving home too young and tries to marry me off, but I prefer the dish pig back against the woodfire. I collect the bones, leopard spot, Aussies send back criticising their char, and we immigrant nod while nonna eats the crusts. My matrilineage is questioned when I respond Australian. Here. Here. Here. County Clare. They scan my Roman nose. Frigento. Ha! They decide, I am Italian.
1 pomodoro - tomatoes
2 Il pizzaiolo – the pizzamaker
3 Il lazzarone – a low socio-economic class attributed to the invention of the Neapolitan pizza
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Lisa Collyer is a writer and educator in Boorloo. She is the author of the poetry collection, How To Order Eggs Sunny Side Up, which was short-listed for The Dorothy Hewett Award and is published with Gazebo Books/Life Before Man. She is widely published and was a recent writer in residence for City of Swan, Katharine Susannah Prichard Writer's Centre, The National Trust of W.A. and W.A. Poets Inc.
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