Cruise Ship Room Attendant
The American woman at the table screamed
at the Moroccan man who offered to buy her.
Screamed until her face
was a baboon’s ass of scarlet.
The Moroccan asked her husband how much for her
in French
in Spring
in well-ironed clothes reeking of cologne.
Even the birds heard her.
What do you think I am
a fucking souvenir? And you!
She said to her husband
Why aren’t you beating him to death?
I leaned back in my chair and watched
the Moroccan go, strolling down
the sun-beat cobblestone
while the woman glared at her husband
and dipped the last of the bread
angrily
in the last of the olive oil.
The rocks on her hands gleamed
like a madman’s ideas.
Her swollen bag of souvenirs
slumped below her slumped husband.
This man wasn’t heartbroken,
just back-broken. A dull razor pushed around.
When I clean the mirror in their room
I imagine his reflection strangled nightly
by the lotion tubes and perfume bottles
overflowing on the dresser.
The Moroccan passed into the shadow
of a great mosque and the couple
edged back to the cruise ship. I doubt
the husband thinks often of the future.
I don’t think he’d so easily
part with two thousand camels.
Storming the Gates
The night is an animal creeping on all fours.
Without it there’s no guardian or shroud
for us to hide behind
so we can fall back
into each other like raked leaves.
Remember the time you kissed a stranger
in the grass pooled with black ink?
Remember smoke filling the car
in the church parking lot?
Remember whatever damn secrets you have?
Good.
Now wrap these treasures in barbed wire.
Because the world will tear them from you.
Time, money, family, a spouse, cops, teachers
will tear them from you.
Your boyfriend, your girlfriend
will tear them from you.
You gotta fight dirty before they do.
(And they will.)
You gotta shoot your own mother
on the lawn of yourself.
What my wife knows
and my friends know
and my boss knows
and the girls in laser skirts know
about me
would force me to live a thousand years.
This is my rebellion. My defense.
I scratch the night behind her ears
and stroll into vodka-kiss hotels.
I live as if an angel stole a bag of kindness
from the storage closet.
Now run. Go. Get out there.
Call everyone. Call it faith.
Call the glistening flames
between normal living
the first stutters of some new
and cosmic engine.
