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A GLASS OF SHERRY AND A FEW OLIVES (AMOR FATI)

                                                                    

By age 23 not a word of Jane

Austen had entered my brain. I was waiting

for some girl’s olive-textured laughter

to rise up through the orange trees of Cordoba.

There was no girl. With olive-textured anything.

I might recognize that earlier me approaching

but I’d hesitate to ask what’s up. I kind of know already.

Sullen and unappreciative, he’d probably want

to know what’s coming his way, what little disasters to

dive head-first into, what pleasures to miss by a pubic hair.   

Just kidding.

Maybe I’d tell him about Kiera Knightley’s

smile in “Pride and Prejudice,” the way

it splashes its light all over

Mr. Darcy’s miserable, besotted face.

Or that travelling in Europe on twenty-bucks a

day is like subsisting on bread sticks and tap water

in the world’s largest gourmet food court. I remember him

stealing croissants just delivered to a café in Avignon.

He knows what’s going on. Hunger sharpens awareness.

Glass of sherry, a few olives. I think he’s

hoping I’ll buy him dinner. Cordoba, Andalucia,

Spain, Europe, the World. His understanding of it all

limited to the occasional stoned intuition, plus a mild case

of Dunning-Kruger effect. We make fleeting eye-contact,

trying hard not to love each other too much.