I went to Costa Rica to surf, but I didn't know how, and I didn't care to learn.
I went to Costa Rica to drink the coffee. It was good and cheap.
I stayed up all night in a hotel in Quepos. The light was orange. The girls
laughed in the halls.
Costa Rica, Rica Costa. I drank the water, I lost my pasta.
In Tamarindo, a fortune teller with a little dog said I had odd good luck.
Over the border bullets smacked the dry hills. I drank the coffee.
The crucifixes on the gatehouse to the cemetery were upside down.
The light was a burnt orange. Girls laughed, chased by the boys.
I followed a friend down here. She left America. We argued about the news.
She would have basked in our new president; now I could tell she didn't really care.
In Costa Rica this made me feel my old feelings, why am I here, what was fair.
Like I told Mr. Jamieson, his neck bent, his hot wife, the smile like gin, me
home from college,
I couldn't explain my presence there.