Šibenik

Triumphant approach after accidental highway through the hinterlands. Behold the quiet town, shimmering mirrored in the harbor.

Should we have come at daybreak? No: Šibenik’s stone streets are mute orange magic by lamplight.

Doors stand wide open. Ventilation trumps lock and key in the tiny town. Childishly tempted, we “break in” to an apartment building.

Plants in odd architectural corners of the stairwell. Our feet and mouths try to whisper. We reach an apex beyond which there are only locked storage spaces. Disappointed by the lack of roof access, our investigation yields no light bulbs, no reason to pick locks. The nudged rat poison lingers on his fingers as he touches my hair. He apologizes but I’m unconcerned.

We climb over fence and crumbled wall to make shadow puppets in a wrecked fortress. He’d like to steal the flag, but it is padlocked to the pole. Red lights blink in a triangular cemetery below. We contemplate death dates on temporary tombstones bearing the same surname.

Shall we? We nod to each other, sleepy, but a pontoon juts into the harbor: an invitation. I disrobe first, rapidly. The girls follow, orbs of pale flesh softly orange before slipping into the glittering black.

Adriatic silk on nymphean skin. We shout and laugh, calling into the dark. We hush, silent to meet the exigent still of perfectly doubled boats on water. We splash and swim and finally shiver, waiting selfishly for towels.

#10/30 "Now, Everyone Knows Your Name"

Unsure of what it was,

we scratched it with our finger nails.

Tasted it. It melted at the edges

and multiplied under a microscope:

a fractal sponge scooped

out of strawberry ice cream.

Emptier and emptier it expanded,

wide caverns of paper milk

spun into suggestion’s opposites.

We shrank to slide inside,

to slick our skins on sugar membranes

and dig toes into the ebb tide

of melted cream, falling away.

We shivered to the pulse that marked

each hollow exponent’s explosion.

I ate my heart and wondered

if you’d wish on us enormity,

to fill the grottos

with opposition for entertainment.

I’d never been so happy

as when I was small and sugar

-slicked beside you

in all that waxing emptiness.

I ached to stay,

our toes sole landmarks

in a wide, delicious country.

But you were a lush, indelicate girl.

You dairy-stank and swelled, fast,

merciless as a guillotine; you

leaked from fractal windows.

I clung to you; first a child,

then a tick or trace of pollen.

I was a single cell before

your skin opened

permeable and I

slipped into you.

Imagine my surprise

to find your cell walls

scrumptious, studded with

frozen fruit, expanding

ever lonelier in runny

fractal sponges

of strawberry ice cream.