Damon Hubbs

The Orgy

Struthonian, from the Latin
struthio (ostrich), to bury one’s head in the ground 
or in our case that Valencian girl’s pussy; 
Jim the Painter was there, and the girls we called the Old Roses 
The Poet, The Banker, the girl from Liège 
obsessed with the architecture in Rohmer films,
Sebastian and Violet, that girl who looked 
like Eva Green, the Lorca scholar whose father 
owned a vineyard in Portugal, that guy who looked like Eva Green,
the guy we nicknamed Gregor —after Samsa 
social climbing like a surrealist, leg over leg over limb 
over labia, Paul with the continental philosophy degree 
parading unabated and half-shirted 
reading Tennessee Williams’ “Sweet Bird of Youth,”
The German, The Confectioner, Gretchen
who peeled off her bikini on playa de Las Arenas 
and said, “How do you know when cantaloupes are ripe?”
Lupé and the hash dealer, the Wild One who made tiger nut
drinks at the cafe in Alboraya —Elaina, Jen, Erin, Joel, Lisa
Kristin opening like an 18th century floral journal,
the red-haired girl we called the fainting countess, 
that guy with the cock as big as the Ritz, peacocks, doves
swans, skylarks, all of us burying in the fullness of delight—
youth, now, a simple foreignness
like a pay phone or cigarette machine 
selling oranges.