Danger comes easy

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The best beer I ever drank was a Sol tallboy

from a styrofoam cooler in a neighborhood park

in Merida. It was Carnival in Mexico

but that particular block party could have been simply

someone’s birthday. Still, a teenage boy

sold me the can, ice cold, almost

frozen. There was a parade that day — floats

for hours blasting pop music. Drag queens

in tall wigs and short skirts threw kisses

like candy. You wouldn’t think there’d be

so many queens in Mexico, or maybe it’s no

surprise. And ordinary, too, how the police

watched the parade from military transport vehicles

wearing helmets and assault rifles like sashes. No cause

for alarm. An officer chatted up a clown. A boy

with white shoes and complicated hair

rolled his marquesita cart closer

to the crowd. We’re born innocent

and then the world seeps in, salt water stinging

our wounds. Danger comes like that, easy,

from unexpected sources. We never understand

how little we know until the next wave brings us

face to face with drag queens and rifles,

the Caribbean ocean, a hundred varieties

of bananas. We think we know about bananas;

suddenly what we thought was a banana

all that time was just subterfuge

and marketing and we either give up

or we set off in search of the truth. Cold beer,

strange beauty, narrow scrapes

in far-away places, road maps

to who knows where. Tonight I stood

for ten minutes watching fireflies rise

in an abandoned lot. Passersby slowed to see

what I was up to. I am an interloper now —

middle aged and soft, so therefore dangerous.

Ask me how my day was, ask me

what I think of anything. I’ve come this far

through the parade crowds and the invisible war,

through a thousand shades of Caribbean blue.

I’ve caught all the kisses my pockets

can hold. I will not holster

my words anymore.

Filed under: inspiration, memoir, poetry, travel, Writing