"cambrils" poems
In the salted corner of the square,
A small glass door opened to watery air;
I glanced down there throughout siesta,
Anxious at the root of a dry tongue
For wine squeezed from the ochre hills
Behind Cambrils, she sold in empty
Water bottles, a Euro for a litre.
I hurried down through the Casa Gallau,
Quickly as my sunburn would allow;
Dove into light as though onto hot sand,
Around cars that sounded like fire fights,
Squinting in the peppered, robust sun
And in - the old woman waiting, “Adeu!”
Then back upstairs, but slower now:
To watch TV in Catalan; to face
A frying pan balcony;
to get drunk and think of rain.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 11:52 AM UTC
I finished work and waited for her
With a cigarette, watching an African try to sell sunglasses
to sleeping Irish tourists;
The light was a million needles against my neck
And my beer damp work trousers were
patterned by pale sand blown from the beach.
She walked towards me from the shore;
Her rusty hair writhed in the sea’s laconic breeze,
And I heard blood beneath the waves, and the mountains,
Falling blue to the white waters, seemed to pant beneath
The sun’s arms,
And I felt I could fall too,
Like the sun,
Like the word,
Like the mountain’s peaks.
She paused and watched me, her arms filled with bags
From Suma, and her gaze empty
As a breath designed to hold a name.
Cap Salou cracked like crystal against the air -
I sat beneath a rustling palm
On a stone wall warm as fresh bread;
And thought I heard her laugh.
It was an ordinary day, and I don’t know why
I remember her stood beneath that sky and no other;
As though that moment could stand for all:
A heart without use, blown like the grains
Of dust and sand between us,
Her eyes hidden by distance, growing dim:
White sand, red hair, green eyes,
And laughter.
Sep 24, 2015
Sep 24, 2015 at 9:00 AM UTC