“Bourdain said,” my mother said as though he were

her devil, my mother, confined to a chair by years of toil 

for others, like Bourdain in his kitchen or on the road

in places my mother had never been and sure as hell

would never get to now. Bourdain spoke to her

from Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Bangkok, Lagos.  

She’d found her man, unafraid to risk his life

for a hearty meal. He rolled through Yaba,

asking the locals to smother his moi moi and fufu

until he kissed them and asked them to dance

at the club where my mother let it all hang out, 

getting low to the Afrobeat and nibbling his ear.

There was my mother, ageless, arm in arm with him

strolling down the Avenida Atlântic

claiming an oceanfront bench, to share

a bowl of bobó de camarão and a caipirinha

just as the night breeze cooled the coast, her head

on his blousy shoulder, dissolving in the mist.

George Guida is author of nine books, including the forthcoming novel Posts from Suburbia (Encircle Publications, 2022) and five collections of poems, most recently Zen of Pop (Long Sky Media, 2020) and New York and Other Lovers (Encircle Publications, 2020).