Somewhere Within the Four Corners of a Round World

In the waiting room
        of the walk-in clinic
        a two-year-old resists
        against the tether
        of his mother's
        wavering attention
        like a chained kitten

the boy
        still within the grace
        of invented language
        and with the urgency
        of a small creek after
        a heavy rain

tells mom
        or anyone of us willing
        to claim a moment
        of amused curiosity

how he
is Marco Polo
        at first contact
        with our China

 

I taste
        the spray of waves
        breaking on the hull
        of cherubic Marco's ship
        as he rounds the Cape

that taste
         so similar to
         the salty tear

I kissed
         on Carmen's smile

that day

she came

to share

 

the joy
        of my first
        art exhibition

        when we filled
        our tattered sails
        with affection
        and our recalled
        young lovers' wish
        for a voyage

        to the shores of Paris

        to walk barefoot

        on the sandy beaches
        of the Louvre

        drinking cappuccinos

        in the shade

of
       a tall

love

       poem

                  --Tony Cardoso

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