Falling Asleep Over Geography III

My eyes wouldn’t open, the lids were leaves
of lead. She brought her face close to mine,
unfolding a breath of whiskey and cigarettes.
Her whisper was rough as a cat’s tongue. “One

art,” she rasped. “One art.” Then I seemed
to wake on a salt-rotted wharf. Flamenco
frisked from a rickety blue cantina. Guitar,
clapping hands, clack of castanets, the rapid

staccato of the dancer’s little furious feet.
Overhead, a hidden moon silvered the edges
of transfiguring clouds. I looked down. An eel
lay writhing in a mass of tangled sargassum,

and I dove into the slopping surf. Roping an arm
around that slippery sleekness, clamping its mouth
shut with my free hand, I bent to what I imagined
might be its ear and begged, “One life. One life.”