The year in Spain, eating pork and
kissing dark-haired men, I had a big jaw. I took
the peninsula by his waist and held on
through the cities, learning the tongues
of the Mediterranean and taking trains
through olive fields. In Oporto I pressed up
against plain shower tiles and a man
with two earrings. The hostel keeper
made me Portuguese spaghetti, the beef blended
completely into red sauce. In the back streets
I mimicked directions, hooted out broken Castillian,
laughed through it with a cop,
Rhiannon Thorne 