A sprawling elm hides all the men
who kiss in secret above the deep
bellied reservoirs; they know underneath
is a drop straight to the underworld, a wood
and steel well hiding all those roman gods
chained to the ocean pools of Portugal.
I pass the shopcats, leering
in their doorways, stately guardians
in a mangy hunch and down by the river,
the fisherman laugh when I get wet
from a passing ship’s aggressive wake.
The did not warn me. And they know
the sea here. But they could
not resist the pleasure of seeing
a young woman flustered and wet,
my jeans and purse and long black hair smell
like the Tagus the whole walk home
and they chuckle
with their bait, cast again, wait
for a Norwegian girl to take
my same seat
on the riverbank. On the walk
home, I thought of
your tanned wrists and what
your hands were doing
at that exact moment. I bought
figs and okra and imagined
each of them sliced
in your mouth, the lacy impression
they might make on its roof, your gums
a little art gallery
and envy of all the deco
around these parts. You would
have sat with me teasing
those shopcats, we’d do
nothing but write them poems,
give them royal ancestry, make them
monarchs of certain travessas.
One night, in fact, I passed
the travessa d’esperança and caught
the sounds on my tongue. A boy
smiled, told me in English,
that in Portuguese,
esperar does not
only mean to hope,
but to wait.