Happiness

I love cement houses
painted pink. At dusk

they take on the hue
and texture of

real skin. Pink is
a persistent theme

in my life. In
New Orleans, I had

a pink hotel room
two blocks south of

the Desire trolley line,
in Playa del Carmen

one replete with geccos,
and in Tartus

a pink room
a few meters up

from the Mediterranean
shore, all with

peeling walls
and smelling slightly of

urine and liquid
soap. I felt like

Ronald Firbank in
Rome, embarrassed

to have company,
or like an incestuous

cousin hidden in
the back closet of

a play by Tennessee
Williams. The room

in Tartus had a balcony
and there I met

two lovely guys from
Shiraz. I'll always

remember the light
touch on the back of

my neck while
one of them gestured

with the cup of
his other hand, around

a spit of land,
saying how Beirut was

there, just around to
the left. Not south,

but left. That body
and place burn

with like gesture,
as simple as reaching

for nourishment, knowing
where to find it.

Later, there was
a pink pension in

Cesme, and on Chios
a pink bar in which

to practice subtle
social graces

with a handsome
English couple.

The sea and sky
were not pink:

And my heart was
black and made to stream

like so many ants
in an alien alphabet.

I'd come to listen after
poluphloisboios, and so

walked around to
the left side of

the harbor, snuck down
behind the police station

in among the broken boats
and sat to see if

I could hear the sound
that Homer heard,

the slap of the sea's
rhythm, my own beating

heart and the sexual
streak of starlight gliding

like a phantom through
my murmurs.

Dreams are possessed
of pink orality, the nubs

of flesh where nerves are
bunched are what

any lustful tongue
pursues, the language of

laving the language
itself: This alone is

love. Like the touch of
the red hand at Tulum

a sign, completely
beyond interpretation,

for no sake but for life,
the heart veers

always, yet its trail
can be traced to the City

of the Left Hand Path,
where death is close

whose pollinating tears
give cause to sting

and beauty is always
on the quick.


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