I was lucky to have visited the Bar Mazzara,
in Palermo, Sicily. The year was 1995,
and because I loved Lampedusa
my cousin brought me to the Prince’s favourite bar.
There, I reached through the glass.
I touched an older world, the coffee like a vapour
that woke me to a dream that was real.

The bar closed in 2014, bought by a conglomerate.
Like anything in time, everything must change,
even the Bar Mazzara, the Lair of the Leopard,
at which Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
would sit, write, and sip his espressos,
trying to hold time in a porcelain cup,
even though in literature or in business,
loss alone is the constant clause in any contract.