CON TANTE AMORE

Picture the scene
a boy just turned fifteen.

First holiday abroad
but he's like a building whose foundations are being gnawed

by those who should love him
but love is a word that can be its own antonym.

The year 1965, the country Italy.
He goes there with every imaginable insecurity.

This is a holiday on the cheap with students from his father's Technical College
who seem to him like A graders in the art of carnal knowledge.

He mixes with them on the long, boring coach drive down
and they gradually entice him to their side of town.

He's surrounded by older, more experienced boys.
To him girls are a magical mixture of mysterious alloys.

But what he always considered as akin to a chimera
would prove to be his on the Italian Riviera.

The hotel owners' daughter looks like she's stepped down from a silver screen.
She's like Claudia Cardinale to this boy of fifteen.

Of all those, whether English or Italian
she chooses this boy to be her holiday companion.

They go everywhere together, Venice and Verona on the train.
He knows he'll pay later and his parents' anger will fall like rain.

Nights they spend walking through town or lying in the sand,
days they're glued to each other, walking hand in hand.

They're on a warm beach as their last day's sun begins its ascent.
Love had been a big mystery to this boy, now he knew what it meant.

As he boards the coach for the final goodbye
Ornella hands something to him, her tearful parents nearby.

He puts it on, his mum notices. "Wait what's that ...... that thing?"
"You wouldn't understand, you never will, it's a sign of love, it's our ring."