Porto

 By Xavier Vagus

 

Leave the black ropes of wet seaweed

and grime

on the rock 

emerging like hair on a head of slime

crowned with cormorants

 

comb it into grape vines

terraced in rows

by almonds and olives

lemons

and orange groves

 

where Matosinhos fish plump as gourds

swim through silk scarves

and footballs batted

like a baby born

cross the sand bar

 

find Lola there

she likes the iris as it blooms

the music of legumes

women in the waterfalls of 22

rockets of raspberries

exploding cigars

and Jupiter's moons

 

we fit with ease

like tortoiseshell cats in the breeze

on the arches of the Ponte Luis

laughing like a jet ski flip 

on the Douro

floating in the color of coral

 

she was the lula in oil

the pastel storefront of the pastry shop

minds evaporating in the illegal disco

and shattered the acude

drowned the rock

while I sipped Super Bock

like an ape 

contemplating an apricot

Porto original appeared in The Cat and the Oriole