Garachico

Tenerife with its mouth full of salt

The sea here does not forgive.

It gnaws the black volcanic bones
with its widow’s teeth,
dragging white foam over the rocks
like spit from a furious god.

Garachico sits there anyway,
small and stubborn
as a scar that refused to fade.

I walked its narrow arteries at dusk,
past balconies bleeding geraniums,
past old men folded into café chairs
like burnt paper saints.

Everything smelled of salt,
fish blood,
wet stone,
the bitter perfume of survival.