my most prized possession (perhaps, tonight)

my most prized possession (perhaps, tonight)

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i first saw it through stary eyes in a bookshop in bologna. i blinked incredulously that such a thing could exist. i ached and pined for it. but it cost a mild fortune, i was 13. playing truant and living with my grandmother, terrorizing the nuns that were trying to school me in italian grammar. while floating in and out of visconti's universe of times past and times lost. and when i found it at half price in a fair in piazza maggiore i did not hesitate. i rifled through my nonna's drawer, stole money and rushed out to get it. drawing blood from a clenched fist, so nervous was i. i hid it for years, and only pulled it out late at night, when no one was around, much as i do now, 15 years on. to gawp and gape, in awe and wonder, for each page of the rarest of gold. for the world it conceals.