Gifts (v2)

He is shopping in a bazaar
bright and spacious
bubbles blow from hookahs
He picks up a conch, examines an oyster
with the embedded start of a pearl.
He has already brought me seashells
so he puts them back. Has already brought
me an embroidered cloth cap that I will never wear
a sequined fanny pack that lasted a day
a gold chain twisted like DNA. Here is
Hemingway selling copies of The Garden of Eden
He jingles the loose coins in his pocket,
holds his camcorder to his eye and records
brass lamps, ornately framed mirrors.
The point of gifts as always, is to
assure me that he misses me, thinks of me–
but doesn’t know when he’ll be back
or how he to mail a postcard from here.
There is no one selling stamps
no Internet cafe.
He comes to me instead
in my dreams, disappears when I ask him questions,
sometimes reaches his hand into my world
and drops a coin in the pocket of my bathrobe.