for anyone who has run in (or been to) Lisbon

Running the Coast


poem 6. Lisbon


They began here, Belem,
believing, (they’d discover),
long ago a plank exposed
and every step the wind cooled
was given aloft
to God and Reign. What was
the travelling mind
inspired to abjure?
What palpable whim?

Not all are men
raising the same banners
now. Crowns and medals
appear between breasts,
bridges sink so low
that a slight flick of the jaw
will enable a long indulgent
drink. Only the coarsest of sailors
doesn’t sip an entire life.

I begin here too, aground,
shivering, nothing to unearth
but the Tagus’s tide
and Henry the Navigator
demarking the last of a million
goose bumps. His compass,
pointing freely, so real
in stone because he and the clouds
could never settle these shores.

I begin with a mast and sails
tendered like rain, (sideways).
The wind is a woman with a camera
that cannot be focused,
only my jib-angled torso
moving past restaurants
advertising the “New River”
(and a monument
that doesn’t open until noon).