La Turista

I get sick when I travel
But it's not the usual thing
My partner
(Who I'm just learning to call my partner)
Thinks it's anxiety
He says, "It's ANXIETY"
I call it my tummy troubles
Like a child
But I threw up on a train in Dorset
and again on a balcony in Istanbul
In Dakar it wasn't until I was off the boat
But still everyone could hear me
Through my thin room's walls
(Those bastards were writers
And the chances of a poem somewhere
Or god forbid, a story,
Of some large, loud girl puking
In sight of the sea
Are not low, goddammit)
What I hope is implicit is
I'm not talking food
Or water
Or beer
Or washed lettuce
And my partner, god bless him, is wrong
What it is is my body
Discovers my body
A flake of stucco
A flake of skin
Recognize each other
And those few ancient particles
Riotous at meeting
Subversive remembering
Make the whole thing
Revolt