The road twists off the map:
One lane barely paved
Disappears in the cotton fog
Smoothing lime-green hills
Humped like sleeping whales
Where hushed cows graze.
 
I crawled along for two hours
Picking my way to an empty
Cove, wet stones, dark sand
Meeting dark horizon, sat folded
In a dirty blanket, stared at tiny
Waves and running sanderlings.
 
Later I emerged in a village
Of one street waiting for tourists
Stopped to warm myself
Wandered in wood-floored
Shops, found some Swedish
Clogs—
 
but it was the music
That transfixed me, standing
With shoes in hand, head
Tilted, frozen, a woman's
Voice filled the street, then
The receding hills, the far
Beach, the foggy coast—
 
I bought the shoes and CD.

Copyright 2009 by Emily Strauss.
Used with the author's permission.