PORTUGUESE LESSONS
When we retired, I told my wife if we’re going to live in a city,
I want to be in the midst of it, not stuck in a high rise on the outskirts
near a megamall. So,
we found a small apartment on a run-down street
in an up-and-coming neighborhood.
Across the way is a grumpy seamstress, a florist with a permanently
molting parakeet, and a barber, more about that later.
On the corner: a café-bar, a butcher’s shop, and a dry goods store
specializing in tablecloths, socks, and women’s underwear.
My urban idyll, but the barbershop is a reminder
the sidewalk is always cleaner one block over.
When it first opened, it was a 24-hour party until neighbors complained
and the police came round to explain the difference
between a license for a barbershop and a disco, especially
the hours of operation. After that the pool table arrived.
It took months to block out the click-clack of billiard balls.
I still have issues with the clientele, high school and college-age boys
with a fondness for bad haircuts
hacky-sacking a football in the street and shouting their conversations,
most of which are about pussy and beer.
My Portuguese slang is getting better, but it’s not easy
finding the right conversation partner, even online.
This afternoon, my nap ruined, I wanted to step out on the balcony
in my wife’s panties and say, “Please shut the fuck up.
We’re trying to have an orgy in here. I was about to cum
on someone’s face, two faces, but you ruined my concentration.”
Of course, I didn’t because I remembered that I too used to be
an idiot and an asshole and didn’t need to prove it at my age.
And my Portuguese isn’t that good.
—from Rattle #85, Fall 2024
__________
Bob Lucky: “I love sound. I love languages, which may not be evident from the way I mangle them. For most of my adult life, I lived throughout Asia, from Japan to Saudi Arabia. And for a time in Ethiopia. Now I’m settled in northern Portugal. I’ve learned to get by. At my age, fluency is a rabbit I’ll never catch. This poem deals with that, obliquely. I suppose I write poetry to work on my English, and I’m pretty sure every word I use has been in someone else’s mouth before.”
