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Desire
In apology, the concierge brings fruit —
green-netted melon so ripe
we gnaw the flesh down to the rind.
Our hands are sharp with sweat.
We wait outside, chairs tipped
against the ocher-mottled stucco,
watching the street arouse from afternoon's
long heat. A waiter unfurls cloths
over the outdoor tables, the almond seller
steers his cart back from the quay.
Canaries in high-mounted wire cages
pouring songs into the dusk.
From the balcony, a spill of bougainvillea,
from the blackened sewer grate
a faint dark reek.
Clearly
this is a city that defers to love,
where the couple in the room promised to us at noon
still possess it undisturbed at six.
Idly we push the melon seeds into patterns
on the plate. Are they sitting face to face
on the bed before the open window,
cooling their bodies slick with sweat?
I know how dusk pearls their skin,
how she twists her hair into a rope and lifts
it off her neck. How one breast
rises with the motion. How
they turn again. They cannot get enough.
As evening deepens, still they linger
stalled in the forecourt of desire.
Jennifer MacKenzie
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