Page 40 - Demo

Brian C. Billings
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El Faro in the Morning
Just past six a.m., I left the hotel room where exchange students lay together on narrow, pushed-together beds in a riot of overlaid
cooling legs. (I slept on the balcony instead
of playing Twister with tequila spinners and woke rinsed in tropical kisses regardless.) Taking out
my city map, I measured a path away from study-abroad disappointment: eight months hosted, immersed, tanned,
but still gringo when speaking la lengua común thanks to ingrained English assonance.
A bright green rectangle held a red El Faro
trapped just where the ocean overcame
the crinkled page. The lighthouse, I translated, and memories of Pemaquid Point dispersed
my morning fog. That crisp, clean salt scent
had no place in my new, lazy latitude, but I hoped I could exchange the sentinels for a beat
by standing on the crumbling lip where all
such towers root and watch. The trail wound patiently through hustlers flaunting bright peppers
by the basket and bundled nopales dripping green goodness, but my feet were stern guides. They brought me into rose-gold
midmorning two-thirds up the dwarf mountain, where I took in a bromeliad wave while creamy plumeria notes made me pliable, receptive
to the last leg I had to give. I arrived
at the old cyclops’s broad foot a little winded but a lot impressed with myself, and I walked
his waist widdershins to spite the sun that made my back an over-irrigated plain where thick hairs became crosses, dark and punishing.