Carlos Pittella

I was green but already           knew how to wait

for summer & test results & body hair...

had waited 7 months for a response to study abroad

but the Madrileño interviewer gasped

when I recited Alfonsina Storni to prove I knew

Spanish from the colonies           hence “negative” it came

out on the wall I spotted           “Study in Portugal!”

where the razzle of Brazil was first imported from

I translated the application swapped Storni for Pessoa

waited 7 days only this time: “approved” & yet

I had to attend a Social/Emotional training

secure living funds           plus of course the visa

metropoles don’t just           let the backflow in

time for the S/E training the prof broke us

exchangeable students into small groups

“boats” she called each crew must decide who

to dump first if supplies dwindle

as the only poet I           was dumped

unanimously           by the economist lawyer techie

the lawyer even apologized

they love poetry after all but what’s the “real” use

when supplies run short? plunged

into a sea of waiting I needed a visa which

should’ve come           6 months now gone

I was planning to drop           my stuff in Lisbon

at a friend’s friend’s of my dad’s patient then backpack

southbound thru Spain ferry over to Morocco nearing

the desert then back northward all over Andalucía

before my classes in Coimbra so if the visa didn’t come

I’d have to have it           sent to Morocco

the closest place outside           the European Union

where to rebirth one’s tourist > student status to be

allowed back in to learn to be one with a visa but

I don’t have a visa & today is the day of my flying

my parents chorusing “cancel please cancel” I won’t

thus I go to the Portuguese consulate           at dawn

the Pessoa paperback sweaty           underarm

I need to talk to the student-visa official I threat/beg

otherwise…. I’m prepared to read poetry out loud

openmic this waiting room till you take me in or out!

that must be a first for they page the stampmaker

who comes down saying “go ahead           recite”

Pessoa’s “Abdication”            which is not even in my book

spills out of my mouth with Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen’s

“Hour” which the Sophia specialist tells me is apocryphal

but I know he’s wrong just listen to the poem!

the officer does & licks a visa to my virgin passport

I call my father           who cries gluey visa tears

promising we’ll backpack           thru Eastern Europe

after my semester is over though I stamp

the magna condition I shall have final say on

where we eat & sleep to which he pinky-swears

that very night I am ungrounded into Portugal Spain

Morocco where I am           robbed & lighter

almost choke           on ferry-smoke forgotten on deck

extorted fooled again & again lighter still

till I suddenly know how to count in Arabic

bargain my way into djellabas couscous friends all

the way back to Spain with half the weight enough

space to memorize Lorca’s           Romancero Gitano

spend Xmas near Granada           with cavedwelling gypsies

cry thru the Mathematical ruins of Madinat al-Zahra

run from but soon with feral dogs at sunrise

after sunrise fall in love with countless

people cities languages my heart a fractal

held together by visa glue           & then the semester begins