"Jasper had the palest blue eyes I've ever looked into. They were hydrangea blue, the blue of a summer mid-afternoon, or, rather, the blue that you find at the base of a flame. I never got tired of looking into them, or having Jasper to look at, or of having Jasper look at me. Jasper was, I thought, as handsome as a man can be, without his being Italian.
Sometimes in Rome, in fact every day in Rome, I have seen men more handsome than Jasper. You can see better looking men than Jasper every day in the Piazza del Popolo or on the Via del Corso. In Rome, even the policemen are so handsome that Dominic, full of grappa one night, could not resist flirting with a group of them, at three in the morning, in the Piazza Barberini. They were amused, thank God.
But this is Rome, it is only in Rome.
It could be Florence, Siena, Bologna, Genoa, Venice, but it isn't. It just isn't true there. It is only in Rome that you will be overcome by the dark, opulent beauty of the men.
Dominic said that God knew what he was doing when he made Italians.
Of course, that is what all Italians say."
from "Such Times"
by Christopher Coe