Polignano a Mare (draft)

in the deep south of Italy a small fishing village sat perched on the very edge of the Adriatic Sea. it was the summer of 1994 and a sense of yearning swept across the beach below, in the evenings the horizon would slip into the sea and you felt that in moments like these maybe this really was the edge of the world.

the cliffs seemed to fall away into the blue water below, bodies scattered across the rocks, the water broken every few seconds with people diving from the cliffs. it felt like a place to be young, to spend days by under the shade of blue umbrellas and lie in the shallows where the fish were gently carried by the currents from the east.

cafes bustling under the heat of the noon sun, dried branches from olive trees scattering the pavement around the square, hot smoke from cigarettes swallowed in the warm salty breeze. the glimmer of aperol lining the tables around the piazza, half empty shots of espresso basking in the sun, the flutter of pigeons drowned out by the footsteps of people down the white limestone streets.

streetlamps lit gently across the bridge in the evening, the hush of the water in the distance, the red and green lights of the fisherman's boats falling into midnight across the horizon. the spilled flour behind the restaurant, the smell of garlic and rosemary suffocating the old town, a saxophone soothing the pink sky to sleep at night. the moon hung gently like a wallpaper, the dancing in the square until late when the stars crept out from behind the clouds and you could see Orion clearly deep in the sky.

people spent long days spent by the water with the cliffs on either side of the beach, taking short drives south towards Ostuni where the village seemed to rise in a spiral of sandstone and sweat, there was a constant desire to be immersed in bodies of blue water, to read books by the Port in the afternoon as the sun fell over the tall hills and the air began to thin. creasing pages in books from summers before, spending hours in the small shops that lined Via San Vito from the station to the beach.

the ring of soft church bells in the morning, espresso by the Cattedrale, tall apartments with the windows ajar and the white curtains alive in the breeze.

...............