Palmyra

the bright pink painted on the woman's fingernails
is awake and makes live the worn brown of the door
even more than her smile or the reflection of her sunglasses

   she strides into a brick coffeehouse
   and when she comes out she's
   twenty minutes older

the deal    agreed to there
twenty minutes of life for twenty minutes of table
twenty minutes of life for
everyone in the place
yes watch her with the vivacity
of sunbeams reflected on the window
of the red van parked across the street

   the tattoos like smoke
   adhere to her arm
   in the heat of this weather

even doorjambs are sensitive to her memory
so when she walks in here the house of bright colors
salutes her    she stays    life whirls    then she leaves
a mere twenty minutes older    close
to the age she was in ur    athens
rome    palmyra    when at first lively and unafraid
she entered into the house of liveliness
she is joyous in leaving    as she was in entering
and her happiness spreads to anyone
who aspires to watch her