sleep in sunday

(paris)
there are two small girls standing on the bridge wit their mother;
they have helium balloons they've gotten from a vendor.
march has chewed the clouds open between hail storms and bouts of rain
and all the repressed sunlight is crowding westward through the holes,
reflecting whitely on the skin of strangers surging past

and i'm in your bed again and it's summer:
you are flipping the record and the white streetlight cuts the top edge of you
from your hair to where you meet the bed.
from here i can't remember what you felt like,
only the motion of my hand up the length of your skin
to your neck

the wind here is cold and fast
and your skin is hot and far.
this little girl is not worried about losing things,
so she lets her balloon go.
she watches it be sucked east into the black gullet
of all those clouds and the swiftly coming night.

(paris, easter)
the bookshelves are full of books i haven't read and beetles i haven't caught. it's sunny outside, though they promised snow. eggs are hard-boiling on the stove. the timer sounds and Nath has cut her finger making models of Ghery, so I am juggling the neosporin, the too hard eggs, these damn memories, and all the plans penciled in. happy easter.

(al jadida)
the old women lay out their heat swollen ankles in the shade, men carry plastic baskets of round, flat bread. in the market sacks sag open with spices and fruits, sides of beef hang over the path and chickens squawk from the scales. egrets bathe in red tide pools, their image and the sky are reflected in the water, rimmed with waxy-haired sea grass. my skin is so dark now, you might think i lived here if my eyes weren't blue. i don't even need sunscreen anymore.

(rabat)
a man sells kettle chips on the shore, his kettle is black, defunct telephone booth dials no numbers, blue sky and pink clouds over the cemetery and i bet none of them care, white and blue medina, a dog scratches on the roof, couples spoon standing on the cliffs, enormous waves crash on the lighthouse sending spray everywhere, on the side of the road are snapdragons

(taroudannt)
everyone comes out at night, which has started making me wonder what i'm doing running around in the height of the day. at the plaza there are three small girls chasing a large yellow balloon. sometimes the man at the cafés will bat it back into play after their tea is interrupted. they are giggling madly, panting, no sure if they are dying or having fun, sometimes all three crashing in a heap on the tiles. cigarette vendors clacking change in their half-curled palms, hungry cats circling ankles. steam from the hammams rises into the night.

(sidi ifni)
three men outside the cafe
they have their eyes on the desert
and their backs to the sea
the owner's wife spoons out harira
they don't look at her
it's dusty and hot and a few weeks until summer
they have their eyes on the desert

(still sidi)
he's got a striped shirt on
eyes and teeth white in a leathered face
body's been working hard to work at all
when he sits down at the café he eats lentils
so fast i think someone might be coming for them
the driver comes back fromtaking a leak
we straighten and stretch
six strangers creak back into the taxi
take to the desert again

6/5/08
i talked to dev and dylan today, it feels like nothing has changed. i laughed so hard, so hard. "i wonder how it will be when you get back" dylan says. i wonder how it will be, too.

(now we know)