I have taken refuge
in travelogues,
bare silk-screen images of
evening cityscapes
giving in to a garish-clad sky;
a tourist romance,
postcard edges feathered
by the contents
of the bottle I lay with
with increasing faithfulness.
Cigar smoke spills
from the balcony, its flight
that of a skulking dog,
guilty tail between its legs.
Vasco Da Gama's return
if he'd had one
could have been like this -
The sway of mocking palm trees,
to purposeless ocean scenery
and in the now unseen harbor -
ships not his.
(2004)
