If You Come to San Miguel

If You Come to San Miguel
by Michael R. Burch

 
If you come to San Miguel
before the orchids fall,
we might stroll through lengthening shadows
those deserted streets
where love first bloomed ...
 

You might buy the same cheap musk
from that mud-spattered stall
where with furtive eyes the vendor
watched his fragrant wares
perfume your breasts ...
 

Where lean men mend tattered nets,
disgruntled sea gulls chide;
we might find that cafetucho
where through grimy panes
sunset implodes ...
 

Where tall cranes spin canvassed loads,
the strange anhingas glide.
Green brine laps splintered moorings,
rusted iron chains grind,
weighed and anchored in the past,
 

held fast by luminescent tides ...
Should you come to San Miguel?
Let love decide.
 

Published by Romantics Quarterly, Poetry Life & Times and Muddy River Poetry Review