To Be Real

There is a statue in Verona, standing in the courtyard outside the House of Capulet, of the fair Juliet. She stands where she might once have seen the young Romeo hiding in the shadows, where she might have listened as he compared her own beauty to that of the rising sun, but for her bronzed eyes that cannot see, and her bronze ears that cannot hear.

And neither can bronze legs walk away from, nor bronze hands slap at, the cold fingers of tourists who reach happily for her breasts, cupping them for “luck.“ Nor can her bronze feet kick the tourists away as they snap endless selfies of themselves while they rub.

No, she must perpetually endure through rain, sun, and cold the throngs who come to shop, eat, polish her nipples, and photograph her heavy smile.

“O! To be the real Juliet! To be she of the flesh, and to have let the poison turn a beating heart back to ash, and dust.

O! To be a real girl, with a real heart!”

Meanwhile, in nearby Tuscany, a wooden statue of Pinocchio...