our apartment

one apartment over
one floor up
across our tiny street
is a million dollar apartment
i can practically see in the window

only fifty feet from me and happiness

we have friends in the states who
proudly proclaimed they have a home that was never previously lived in
i bet while they built it the workers used to pee in the corner

our lousy apartment on a former worst street in roma
is over five hundred years old
back then they used to throw crap out the window
(that is a euphemism of course, i don't know what they threw, but they didn't have indoor plumbing, and the romans aren't known for their consideration)

michaelangelo, cellini and bernini could have been here in our building
and if they were, they were probably drunk
this is a former spot for gambling, drinking and a whorehouse
forty years ago even the police wouldn't walk down this street

a hundred paces away is campo dei fiori, the former execution ground
giordorno bruno was burnt at the stake by the church there
because he contradicted the church when he said the earth was not the center of our universe
that bastard

hey, sun goes up, sun goes down
and our crappy, dark, tiny apartment is still here
now on million euro row.