(calafia)

CALAFIA

We get a perfect
table, at the restaurant
which trails
down the cliff.
Seafood Vera Cruz
for you –
while I have
spinach salad
without the dressing
fat with bacon.
Pushing the walnuts
& mushrooms
to the side.
Down below
someone gathers
from the rocks.
Mussels I assume.
At first I think
it is a man,
then realize
it is a woman
with her black hair
pulled back
in a bun.
Farther away
a man is gathering
also.
At the adjoining table
boisterous American girls
drink too many
margaritas.
You catch rainbows
as the waves break,
but I cannot crane
my neck enough
to do so.
I watch the woman
bent over the
black rocks,
moving her bag
from rock to rock –
an unorchestrated scene
which compells me.
She blends in with
the black rocks
in her dark clothes
and her black hair
which has rainbows
too I’m sure,
that I cannot
see from here.

3/3/99