FIRST NIGHT IN BUENOS AIRES

Old political cartoons
punctuate the pink walls.
Our waiter wears black tie,
brings out dish after dish:

steaks the size of dinner plates
and homemade noodles
and lettuce with vinegar,
sweet onion on the side.

We cap the day
with bright limoncello
and a wobbly walk on cobblestones
like Europe, refracted.

By breakfast -- coffee,
medialunas smeared with dulce,
watching the city wake
through wrought-iron doors --

two cells have collided
inside me, beginning
their long journey
into the wide world

and we set off on foot
to explore,
never dreaming
what adventures lie ahead.

This week's readwritepoem prompt, let's get it on, invites us to take sex as our theme -- specifically, "the haphazard nature of getting it on." As it happens, this week marks a year since our vacation in Argentina, which is where and when Drew was conceived. So that's where my poem for this week wound up going.

Although Drew only barely appears in the poem, I see it as another in my series of mother poems. It's the prelude to this whole rollercoaster.

(If you're interested in reading about Argentina, by the by, I posted three times about our stay there: A taste of far away, Shabbat morning at the Libertad, and A day on the ice.)

As usual, you can read other peoples' responses to this week's prompt by checking out the comments at this week's Get Your Poem On post.

[buenosaires.mp3]