The Sinai Lepoard and other poems

The Sinai Leopard

In a low-rate hotel, the fool sipped on a little black bottle. It was supposed to be magic. He  remembered seeing a boy and a girl, when he was a boy. Suddenly they appeared in the room. Their skin was like icing-sugar. The next night, he took another sip, intending to make the most of his collection of memories – but a memory came to him unbidden, of the time when he saw a Sinai Leopard. It was big and heavy. It bared its teeth. The bottle fell out of his hand, and its contents spilled on the carpet.


The Flyswat

The playa was endless,
like the shift he was working. The little hut
with its row of beer pumps and its blackboard
of prices was full of flies, and sometimes
he would try to hit them with the electric flyswat
but that game lost its fun after the first few kills.
Round men with red faces and their shirts open
queued up for their plastic pint glasses of beer.
They went for Stella. Always Stella. They blinked.
He felt his shirt stick to his back with sweat.


Días Perdidos

From the turret, you can see out
across the flat, featureless water,
...