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[Lizzie]

There you are standing
in a hat and raiment
blue as the hills
of Tuscany,
smiling
like you would melt into summer
as all the bells
ring in harmony.

Well, it's official: I'm not a romantic.

Standing. in. a. hat: it makes me smile for all the wrong reasons.

In other news, I don't know if I'd ever want to be described as "blue as the hills." Being called blue is like being called depressed, cold, on death's door..... And then there's "old as the hills."

A melting smile is kind of surrealist/horror movie esque. Makes me think of the guy at the end of Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade whose skin melts off before his skeleton explodes because he didn't choose wisely. Again, I'm not sure that I would consider it romantic to be described as melting in the sun. I'm melting, I'm melting....

What are these bells? Are these church bells? Bells toll for all sorts of reasons. Are they funeral bells? That would change the plot of the poem for sure. I find the ambiguity distracting.

If this is a dark humor piece about love and death, then I adore it.