El
Museo de jamon
Backwards on the way to Santiago
Your ‘bacan’ (cool) tourist guide gave us the hip version
of Madrid. Catchy scripts that were funny enough I forget the words,
just have the laughter. I do remember you’d torn the Madrid section
from a complete edition, in some backpackers in Copenhagen. That,
and conforming to the city way, lips locked carelessly, to stop and
look where we were.
Stunned, this time not by your kiss.
‘Now I’ve seen everything! They have a museum of ham.’
Salted meats soaking air, years later, soaking air. A day in Madrid,
accident of my own disarray, booking a ticket too late, forced to
travel 57 air hours backwards round the world, to chance upon you
here, pickled in my own jetlag.
few words
quiver the air
in a courtyard,
words make a breeze:
floats beside cracked ice
(we ask japanese tourists to snap us)
Whisper
on a street corner
shakes the air
oscillatory tempo,
awakening,
butterflies alight
on the roof of my mouth,
fluttering fragile
leaves quiver
had to take a photo (of my red haired rag travel companion doll) on
a pylon in front of all that meat, deliciously waiting, naïve
to centuries old knowledge, I can’t work out how it doesn’t
rot? Turning around to find you reappearing,
‘did I embarrass you my dear?’
‘no I just desperately needed to check out those boots in the
window behind there’
The sky shattered apart in a mess of colour changing by moment enlivening
my navel to a thrill that
creeps upward indelible warmth bursts out my mouth with a sigh.