. . . landing (in madrid).

twice or three or four times removed from home now:
I guess I've lost count.
I miss the relative comfort of new york city
its persistent noise and confusion
in a language I understand.
the smoke and the grease--
those east village hipsters.

here, it's beautiful.
the buildings, the dogs, the fountains, the sky,
the people are breathtaking.
walking statues.
all of this city is a fashion show.
if only Michael Kors were here to judge it
more creatively than I ever could.
so many people, but I am here
alone with my thoughts,
discomfort, mosquito bites, indecision,
and all the world feels big and old and uncertain,
heavy and awkward as if I am exploring it
in a set of someone else's stiff, too-large clothes
waking up in their bed,
the smell unfamiliar and the sheets the wrong texture.
at the restaurant, somehow I end up with
six assorted mini sandwiches for lunch
anchovies and eggplant,
and a beer.

my phone still thinks it's in queens. I have no watch.
It is morning but I have not slept.
I am walking and I am wearing black.
it is noisy and bright but
I fall asleep
no, sleep takes me by force,
in the grass by the row boats at the park,
and Spanish words fall to the ground around me.
If only I could pick them up and make sense of them.
put them in the right order and demand
that they speak plainly to me.
I dream of tornados and floods and someone chasing me
I need to save someone, but I don't know how
so I just stand there, trying to scream.

my clothes are damp when I awake
unsure how much time has passed
and the people sitting cross-legged or lounging around me
have changed entirely.
It is still bright.
The sprinklers come on,
and I realize I'm wearing the same thing I was
the last time that happened.
at the art museum. do you remember?
My third cortado of the day
provides a false sense of alertness.
I wander, stumble-- that was a step--
trying to take it all in.
so much beauty,
I don't know where I should go
or what to eat, or how I should even find out.
I won't have anyone to kiss at sunset.

All I can say is please, thank you, coffee, hot,
and I'm sorry. . .
I'm sorry, I am.

So I walk. and I write. and I drink.
And I reach for your hand.
I wish you were here to point me in the right direction
to hold me up on the train
face to face
your arm strong across the middle of my back.
I wish you were here to find ways
to make me blush when nobody is looking
to tell me it will be ok.
I climb the green and white tiled staircase
and walk out onto the terrace.
they are protesting down below,
and I want to join them.
soar down to hold a banner and march march march,
disappear into the crowd
fly down for a cause, for an afternoon
fly down, or not. just fly. just go.
where will I land? will I land?

I press Damien Rice into my ears
and begin to breathe.
to think about which dogs and babies
I'd most like to have
big and Spanish, respectively.
or maybe reversed.
I imagine being a mom in a city like this one.
too pale, and too American
but I push a dark-haired baby in a stylish tram.
she coos in Spanish,
and I have learned to chatter in Spanish
with someone tall and handsome
saying much much more than lo siento.

. . . a private booking

a lapdance, I believe,

is a pretty straightforward thing.

sure, you may be thinking,

a lapdance is the sort of thing

that I could describe without much trouble

or better yet quickly identify,

if I were to see one in progress.

maybe you could even

demonstrate-- or perform 
a lapdance

given the right circumstances.

maybe you even have

in the past. 
maybe multiple times. 

it’s really none of my business.

I can’t say whether any dance

I’ve performed in the past--

and I’ve performed a great many--

could really qualify as

a lapdance and then again,

it’s really none of your business.

but it may be the case for you,

as it was for me,

that when a prospective employer referred to one

in the context of

a job description

for twenty dollars every three and a half minutes

you, wine glass in hand,

wouldn’t know exactly

what a lapdance might entail.

faced with the prospect of earning
one thousand dollars per night,
you may have asked questions, like I did

about hand placement, musical genre, payment,

wardrobe, expectations gleaned from semantics,

gender roles and female objectification

and a litany of other things.

regardless of the answers,

you may have found yourself back again

the following evening,

as I did,

in the red lit dive bar near Times Square

greasy kitchen moonlighting as dressing room

sixty-seven girls, sixty-seven fat purses,

lipstick tubes, hairspray cloud, garter belts, false eyelashes,

sixty-seven tiny dresses,

ass cheeks, wads of twenty dollar bills, perfume,

shaved legs, lace and bows,

tall tall strappy heels, up the stairs,

rihanna beats, devil horns, drinks you have to earn,

crowded bar, sixty-seven girls,

at midnight there’s pizza, which isn’t half bad, 

and the tiny dresses come off.
lingerie, thongs, curled hair, conversations,
music pulsing from above,
an enchanting erotic environment beckons.

personally, I was more interested

in the assorted crowd of

seemingly decent, down-to-earth men

wearing button-down shirts

crowded around clutching beers

waiting to be approached.

Ed the math teacher who wrote a children’s book
too scary for children,

Duncan the handsome scruffy South African

who said that this

was the most real experience

he’d ever had with a woman

(at a place like this).

I could have stayed downstairs

until 4am as scheduled

bemoaning the differences between

what the clients

and the hosts

were told about the event,

telling everyone my name was Natasha,

declining politely when anyone asked me

to dance,

discussing my relationship status,
my greatest aspirations,

and why I moved to new york.

but, when I wandered up the stairs

warm with gin and tonic

to wait in line for the bathroom

in my five inch heels

and the longest dress in the building

grazing my thighs,

I felt a little voyeuristic

peering through the black sheers

to the dance zone.
at long last: the main event.
low red couches. dim light. men sitting back,
hands on knees. looking. soaking up.
tiny dresses and lingerie too gone missing.

and suddenly there was no longer any confusion

in my mind whatsoever

as to the definition of

a lapdance.