joann balingit
Dream Lunch at the Café Negresco
At last.
It’s been a lifetime.
The waiter gently
Strokes your crown
As the red wine
Rises in your cheeks
And the soup spoon
Warm and heavy
Slides from your hand.
The guitarist in the corner
Strums a song you wrote
In your childhood.
As you settle into
Your waiter’s arms
The diners smile in chorus.
The busboy blows you a kiss.
Morning, Walking Home
Past black eyes of cottages
past a white cat paused
by a white-washed wall
paw lifted, a sundial
but for this fog, aqua wool,
frayed mist too groggy
to get up and head over
breakers off Guincho.
Who are Carlos e Maria?
I saw black-shawled women
two to a bucket
scour their red names.
Old worn-out towel
unraveling in the sky,
don’t look now--
the Rio Tejo’s spewing stars
into last night’s bay.
The moon, a smear
of chalk dust, no candle
to light the sun, o meu carinho.
Good road, slope home
gently, please, the way bare
shoulders murmur slowly
under longed-for hands.
Good morning, hands.
You awake? My sandal
strap’s undone. My heart
hardly buckled on.
