My mother’s Mediterranean eyes filled with tears.
‘Madre mia e morta! ’ she cried, as my older sister
stumbled over crude Italian letters.

Our tenement flat became a narrow
room that day; dirges reigned
in place of opera as falsetto turned to alto.

I’ll never know how long it took to bring her back:
a day in May, when flowers bloomed
or a night in June while crickets sang.

Alicia Patti

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-letter-from-sicily/