An Acquired Taste
Enjoying a last dip, rinsing
sand off and out, wringing
hair and slinging nothing over
their golden shoulders and bikinis,
they cross from the Beach to the Place.
Reluctantly some soldiers face
away, to check the buildings and the sea.
One, who guides them or tries to
around the bodies, may be cute;
beneath the faceplate they can’t see his face.
“Tries to,” because the jihadis
are dead in a new way:
odorless, pouffy, plastic,
their beards and frozen hateful glare
clownlike, Kalashnikovs a clip-on
toy, they’re fun to walk on.
On the terrace, a table, microsalads and two
tequilas appear. Paparazzi, hanging
from railings like bats and from walls
like lizards, take aim.
The girls are not famous except insofar
as beauty is fame. Drinkers gazing,
who are clearly themselves not
famous, mix gall with vodka. Bitter
at bitches who won’t even look
at guys without money
(or fame), they become a
single, massive, oozing slime-mold
that biohazard experts rinse away.
The girls, who had been feeling uncomfortable,
relax, while paparazzi replicate
the scintillation waves and sun create.
Unknown to our lovely pair
yet sworn to their safety, an agent
or angel sits nearby and drinks alone.
He’s old enough to deflect
desire into desire to protect.
Not to be heartbroken by proxy
at the one murmur he clearly
overhears: *Oh yeah I know him, but
he’s, like, an acquired taste* … Even to find beauty
as well as information in
their endless, happy, toneless talk
of makeup, shoes, hair-products.
Tools of the struggle, he thinks,
but also gems of freedom and a zone
of innocence they maintain,
far from whatever deals and copes with men.
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