After an improvised aperitivo of salami and wine— 
there was no good bread, 
the people of Siena in quarantine 
who were not feeling sick 
leaned over their balconies 
near the empty Piazza del Campo  
and sang. Their song, once meant to honor 
Italy’s national flower—the lily— 
was now one of community. 
I wasn’t at Selma in the sixties, 
yet I think about blacks and whites 
who marched together and sang, 
of American slaves working in fields who sang. 
I think about the lyrics to “We Shall Overcome.” 
Some of my Jewish family labored 
at Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. 
They carted sand to make bricks. 
Did they sing, too, sotto voce?  
I pray they paused to sip the sweet spring air.