Barbary lions

Last of the Barbary Lions

ii.

There’s no Hippocratic Oath for vets;

in this world a man is what morals make him. I’m indentured to a thug

with a pocket full of mobile phones,

two weeks into a handshake pact of pills and powders.

I’ve been paid to wait, collude

in the plaza haze, my feet

kicking alleys of August wind.

Perched on a stool in Calle Melo’s limestone glower,

watching ocean and sea blur in the Strait.

I’m doling tablets to door knocks,

cutting chorizo with a necktie knife; listing

on a nightly lullaby of horse tranquillisers.

I breathe in the dry air, breath out

a stem of opioid desire

and settle at the bar,

petals in my mouth.

This is my last night swallowing broken Spanish,

feet on the solstice line

a half step ahead of winter shade.

The ferries from Morocco

are on endless loop, red hulls

split sky and sea.