excerpt from Super 8 Software Wanderings


It is a quiet early afternoon in Panama

nine degrees north of the Equator

"Crossroads of the World"

waist of a topographical hour-glass

balcony brains, good food,

clue to insouciance and the rendezvous

"Please, take off your shoes"

The fragrance of gardenias, bougainvillea, hibiscus, firecracker
and ilang-ilang saturates the surroundings

The gardenias, in particular, pursue ordinary gestures

Cockroaches peacefully inhabit rice, barley, sugar and
coffee bins

Chinese shopkeepers tactfully touch their wares with scoops

At all street-corners sit the fat women who sell lottery tickets

There is pleasure in Panama working in a tiny office on
Avenida B

Thanks to my activities as interpreter, criminals of every race
and tribe are conscious of a secret bond

Can you read my hands? I had dabbled in chiromancy
and thus I met Madame Louise

In the tropics the moon is radiant. Innumerable fronds fence
and are mirrored by croton leaves

Dew-drenched, the last fireflies before dawn are a gold drizzle
The wind soughs in the crowns of palms and rustles the foliage
of almond trees

From Quarry Heights--the islanded Pacific and the air aswoon
with francisca, creaking bamboo, hummingbirds and crickets

Islands of Taboga, the San Blas Archipelago, amorous water
freedom and the considerable faubourg of Santa Ana--
"Puerta Del Tierra"

The fragrant plumerias, and then Madame Louise's address--
flanked by a Chinese shop and an apothecary's. Medicinal odours
jar with the scent of tropical fruit and assorted vegetables

To the tableleg dinner is tied
Eye an iguana to avoid a sty

Through an open door a belly dancer is accompanied by black women
who have been to France and have returned with clover
seeds which they cultivate in flower pots. Individual leaves
are sold for magical purposes

Palindromes: ¿A man, a plan, a canal, Panama?

&

Poison:    Akee is a delicious fruit. At first
it is yellowish brown; then it
turns red. A white, savoury pulp
surrounds a black, glossy kernel.
A Panamanian knows what a gringo doesn't:
An akee is fit to eat only when it
bursts open of itself with ripeness

A hammock, a smoke, a melon

To make a magic lamp, everything must be bought on Friday.
Choose a Chinese shop at a moment when it is noisy and doing
a brisk trade in ginger, soapwort, smoked iguanas' eggs, dried
fish, violet-blue hedgeapples and sapodillas. Weigh your own
yams. Dip into the maw of the basket. Take what copras
you need

Nuala Archer

read the author's Bio and Working Notes

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