“We must pretend
There’s a blue painting
At the end of this poem,”
On vacation, breakfast is served from seven to ten, in a large dining hall outside which, at five to seven, there is already a line of seasoned, professional holiday breakfasters in sturdy rubber sandals. Non-slip, khaki, to match the shorts with deep pockets and wide waists; Day Two or Three guests, who know this breakfast, know that—
Seven. They enter—
breakfast is served on four, marble, endless, endlessly refilling buffet tables, with bottomless champagne and hotel compliments.
Breakfast, on vacation, is caviar, on blinis. Salmon, smoked, capered, on toast on silver trays. Eggs, on demand: Benedict, fried, poached, omeletted, on house bread, breads. Bagels, croissants, gleaming, dusted, by cheeses, meats, jams and marmalades in little jars, Nutella. Pancakes, waffles. Ah, no crêpes. Three kinds of syrup. Five of cereal. Hashes, bacon. Donuts, brownies, muffins, and yogurt, oatmeal, granola, nuts, and dried fruit and salad, and
at the very end… of the bar, the season; the rainbow and acceptable age to believe in one and jump and clap:
watermelon. Ripe, glinting mountains of ruby watermelon. Strawberries, on ice, in buckets. More, of blackberries, blueberries, peaches, raspberries. The requisite melons. Grapes and cherries and pineapple the colour of July…
Out of season, out of this world and of a dream, a song, a storybook,
onto my plate, a wobbly pile, in abundance,
a mess, a family-of-six-could-not-eat-this-much-fruit mess. A table,
by the window. A long, wobbly walk away, slow, precarious.
Seated. Plate One. Of Two, Three? A guilty look around: everywhere, mounds of food, eaten, uneaten, on plates, napkins; tables laden with gory vestiges of feast and fettle; Tom Thumb crumbs and dribbles on the floor, some on chins and T-shirts … everyone is on vacation! Sure, why not. Three plates.
Watermelon,
“More coffee?”
Yes, and strawberries, pineapple. Heavenly, local. Later, much, much later, after the buffet has closed, the hotel offers visits, with compliments, to the plantations: pineapple, yes, and coffee, and also cacao, also out of this world,
out of the city, far out of the resort walls, where local families…
of six work on large square lands and live in small square rooms; on grit, the crop, faith, hope, luck, the whims of rain, wind, sun, the seasons and ebbing, flowing, spinning markets; on rice and beans, sometimes with meat, on single earthen plates, on earthen floors, on which they also sleep, on floor mats—
My place mat is soaked watermelon pink. Some juice dripped onto my dress. White, linen, unseasoned, too tight, heartburn, on my chest. On my plate, the remains of too much pineapple, a peach, one strawberry too many. My complimentary glass of champagne is still bottomless, sparkling, celebratory.
On a nearby table, a waitress clears a hazardous stack of filthy plates. I look away, nauseated, out the window, onto…
the street, where dark, skinny, barefoot children kick footballs and dark, sagging, barefoot women nurse infants, and old men in doorways beg and sleep curled up in balls, resting their heads on newspapers—
the sky. Clear, vacation blue; no one wants to know, see, hear, think, feel real while on vacation.
“We must pretend
There’s a blue painting
At the end of this poem
And every time we look at it
We forget about ourselves.
And every time it looks at us
It forgives us for pain.“
– Alex Dimitrov
We should go. The buffet is closing.