I chose a pawn shop in Trastevere, where there would be less chance of running into anyone I knew. Among the guitars and gold watches I offered up my double strand of pearls, dusky rose, coiled in their silk and velvet box. My parents had gone to great expense, when they could hardly afford it, to mark my sixteenth birthday with a gift they considered appropriate for budding femininity. The shy radiance of first romance, moonbeams cool on a smooth throat, etc. I had tucked them, never worn, into my luggage, in case of emergency. Now I desperately needed money. It was for you, for you alone, so you could buy a train ticket, so you could leave at once and return to the love that you failed to find with anyone else.

night after night
clanking his chain
mad dog