NVN Sunday: VENICE SUN
by Alejandro Escudé
Venice has finally revealed the details for its entrance fee, making it the first city in the world to charge daytripper visitors. Starting in spring 2024, visitors to the floating city will have to pay 5 euros ($5.40) to enter on peak days if they’re not staying the night. But this isn’t a permanent move yet – the Venice authorities have committed to a 30-day “experiment.” —CNN, September 13, 2023
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When you first get there— Your ocean liner looms over The island city and you spot The ancient roofs and the plazas, The gryphons, and the gold-fringed Streets, both real and imagined, And the people on the cruise Get off onto the bridges, you Smell the canals—leafy, oily, And the mask you purchase is Expensive, the plague doctor, And you drink a cold beer And you eat in a restaurant Down a corridor, and you think Of the writing you should be Doing, and every corner brings That lifelong, exquisite guilt, And you sidle through crowds And get too hot and walk Out too far, where there are Fewer people, only sunlight Splashing against a cracked wall. And you are in Venice, but At night, it’s Euro-urban scary, And you’re alone and lost And you almost miss the boat Though the boat is docked close. You take the tender back To the pastel-colored cake-boat That is every cruise and you Go to the ship’s casino and sit at The red neon bar, and you forget That you were ever in Venice And it’s almost twenty years Later and you learn that now Venice wants to charge a fee Like an amusement park, and It makes you sad to look at Your mask, hanging on your Wall, remembering the latest Plague. But it makes you Even sadder to learn there Will be days in that city Where it’s not advised That you visit because of Crowds. And you think: I’d go anyway. I’d go Right now just to smell Those canals again. Just To see that palace, fringed In gold. To feel that heavy, Doge’s sun like one coin Of the two that sit upon My aging poet’s eyes.
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Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.