Nation's Oldest

Purple dehydrated corn
and pink himalayan salt
line the sparkling shelves: a market as you come out of the bathroom.

7:10 scraping the crystal boat
that moments ago heralded
a raw catamaran of cocoa-creamy heaven,
almost impossible.
Leonard Cohen hums
through hidden speakers
and i am everywhere but in the present moment:
in memory, in sensation, sound.

this type of vacation cannot cost what we're paying
and if anything just who we can tolerate.

Juniper berries and unwoody sugar cane lined our over-walk
of dolphins and health-food-store co-ops.

I watch double dates and judge the wives
in puffy shirts
watching their husbands engaged
and nibbling on appetisers.

San Sebastian offered dessert port and a roof top
bar in the pouring rain.

The credits rolled and a lady asked if we wanted anything: wine, a beer,
popcorn and those jujubes that cling to your teeth.

Another cardonnay clove and snuggle on a bunk bed
to a snouted biker and his beer gut
and a troubled wall unit on seventy six