Walking Through Old Lisbon

photo by Mirto Kon on pexels

by Lance Larsen

 

Like water I know enough to follow
cobblestones and gravity
to the busking sea half a mile to the west
cigarette butts underfoot
broken light drifting in from above
through laundry hung from windows
such twisty passages awash in a tongue
almost Spanish not quite French
I could be walking a primeval forest
dense with hanging moss
each path tagged with graffiti
a new way to be lost
motley hieroglyphs of here I am
touch me nope too late now I’m a ghost
smells and commotion spilling
into the street from open doors
a mother frying onions
someone vacuuming the world
a teenager sitting at an open
window channeling her darker twin
why are they so much happier than me
somewhere a couple has locked
a bedroom door behind them
maybe he’s shaved his beard
for the first time in seven years
maybe she has one sock on make it pink
make it the left I can intuit
these sacraments just by looking
up at a week’s worth of wash
pinned to the improvised sky
clothes trembling now in the breeze
tablecloths furthest from the window
then the gray workaday work pants
and bleached house dresses
finally closer to the sill scrubbed
boxers and delicate underthings
what decorum what clean
rustling bras like sideways angels
swimming in this bright quickening air

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