Girl from Bahia

We met on the near side

of my twenties, our match made

over feijoada, your favorite.

Ham hocks, bacon, black beans, green onions,

cilantro, parsley, coriander,

orange slices and rich smoke rising from the buried rice.

Your accent made me dizzy.

Tudo bem?

In the park after dark

the magnolias and cherry blossoms

caught lamplight in their colored petals,

the narrow season already withering.

Your strut was a vision -

I always walked half a step late.

Love on the floor again and again. In the chair,

against the tree upstate the leaves turning auburn

and falling. You placed my hands

on your neck, provoked a fevered dream

until the sill in my apartment gathered dust.

published in El Portal Literary Journal, spring 2023