O Lisboa

St. Vincente, patron Saint of Lisbon, stands
in the Largo das Portas do Sol and cradles
a model boat with mariners and two ravens.

He oversees the harbour from the square
of the sun's gates; he guards Alfama's
steep cobbled streets, his scrolled marble
brocade robes have gone deep off white.

Once a ship docked off the Gambia Coast
and took into its hold, unbeknown to all
aboard, a small stowaway:

a boy barnacle; juvenile remora fastened
on to bark then slipped off ship in Spain.
This boy turned man; crossed into Portugal,
addresses Monica and me as "my mothers."

He sells us bead necklaces he's strung himself.
Amber, and an ink stone so blue it's all but
black, same as his own skin is, in reverse.

He gifts us leather bracelets.

Says, "Thank you, mothers, for talking to me"
says he is going to buy supper for his children
and their mother, she like him is Senegalese.

He becomes furtive when a marked car rounds
the corner, whispers, "Policia." St. Vincente,
tent your stone palm. Shelter the ravens.