So much depends

How different would life have been, I wonder, if I were born someplace in Europe.

Alone I walk a formal garden, the conversation not gone, but moved inside my head, behind the Villa Reale, now home to public art.

Ducks and strangely yellow swans rest, plucking at their feathers, on wet, brown earth near the small lake. The sound of a contrived waterfall clapping softly.

On the palace lawn, a boy kicks an orange and white soccer ball with his father, stylishly Milanese with cobalt cashmere sweater and plaid scarf tightly wrapping his long narrow neck.  A couple with two young children, noticeably English, stroll by.

So much depends on the placement of the chicken and red wheelbarrow.