My fingertips will never let me forget the scent of stale cigarettes.
I was a fool in London. All the friends I made had better accents than me.
I dreamed of Bulgaria and Brazil.
I walked through mud. I waited for French tides.
I trudged in heavy water waders.
My hands built a house with stones older than the country on my passport.
The etching of cement on my boots still reminds me what we carried there.
We drove along tired volcanoes and craggy cliffs in the dark.
I never learned how to drive manual.
We flew further south. I dried out in the sun.
The glands of Spanish streets pulsated
citrus mist into the air, my lungs.
I never did remember the difference between limon and lime.
We stayed in a haunted castel but missed Halloween.
The upper peninsula, where Napoleon dreamed of a better dinner.
We moved to Shangri-La. Even in Eden, people still snore.
But there were cakes laced with flowers. And I was over the moon.
Then, a dreamscape. The closest to the Arctic I’ve ever been.
We ate deer for dinner. I baked Danish pies. I slept supine in a smoke-filled yurt. It was all peace. It was all over.
I wrote this poem shortly after I returned to USA after backpacking and working in Europe for three and a half months. I lived in a hostel in London where I made many friends from all over the world. I built a house in Bordeaux. I lived near the beaches of Normandy. I worked in a castle, or "le castel." I had many siestas in Spain. I got ****** in Amsterdam. I was a pastry chef in Denmark.
