by Michelle Noullet

The unfamiliar landscape
dimly lit by the half-moon
ribbons past the bus window.
Small towns like shut dark boxes
sit on the rolling horizon,
hills flatten into fields,
maybe cane, maybe corn,
impossible to distinguish in the night.
The bus swerves and speeds into darkness,
as we too careen into the unknown,
nothing clear, like the fields--corn or cane?
Around the bend, then a scent
So sudden, so strong
It blankets the air,
A wave erotic as the scent of your flesh.
Guavas, you say. the scent fades
in the time it takes you
to lift my fingers to your lips.
Back home, our bodies press to each other,
beauty so sudden, so strong,
momentary as the scent of guavas in the night.

Fruta Prohibida Claudia Perez

Michelle Noullet, originally from Pittsburgh, now lives in Hanoi, Vietnam and runs an English Language Institute. Her poetry has been published in a variety of literary magazines.

E-mail Michelle Noullet at michelle@netnam.org.vn