Traveling to Europe
I get off a plane in Reykjavik, Iceland.
The stop between Greenland and Europe
is brief, time for refueling the jet
& my empty stomach.
I almost ignore the cluck, cluck,
clucking beckon to my right; yet,
I look & a woman, an eyecatcher, gets up
& motions wildly with her empty hand.
“Welcome to my island home,” she speaks
English fluently. “May I trouble you?”
I approach her, saying, “I don’t smoke.”
She answers, “Neither do I.”
She asks me my name, sits & I
sit beside her, take the Coke
she offers then tell her who
I am, both names. She seeks
my eyes says, “I am Hecate
& I am Bi-Sexual. Drink, drink,
I am a bartender. I am disease free
at the moment. I like the moon,
Hecate, & how do you feel that I swoon
at sight of you?” Her gaze holds me
prisoner. I do not take time to think,
& answer, “your eyes are temperate…”
She laughs. “I look at the moon constantly
in winter, the only time we can see her
here.” She calls me by my last name,
“Tomas"; says, “Tomas is Reykjavik’s poet.”
“No place claims me as its poet,”
I tell her” & she says, “if it’s all the same
with you, I will claim you as my author,
but first you must write words for me.”
She hands me a book, its Icelandic title
meaning nothing to me, but I open it.
I see its words have the form of poetry tho
its sounds lie silent on the page.
Dylan Thomas’ words, however, upstage
my thought & at the moment all I know
to write is a parody that seems to fit
of In my Craft or Sullen Art. Subtle,
I write on the title page:
On this spendrift page,
not for a shy woman apart
from the absent moon I write
words for lovers, their arms
round their heated bodies,
making love, their craft, their art.
She reads, “If you have time,”
she smiles, “I will take you home with me.”
A tear flows down her cheek
when I tell her, “My flight.”
I go not gentle from her sight.
Rudy Thomas
