Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

Best whorehouse in all of Panama maybe in the whole damn world the taxi driver is assuring us as he mops the sweat from the chocolate-colored skin of his neck with one hand & with the other steers the clunking rumbling old Chevy Impala with the shot shocks & squeaking springs through narrow streets pocked with potholes & awash with mud & debris after another outburst of torrential summer rains where kids & dogs are sifting through piles of soggy garbage that have collected in the gutters in front of faded pastel-colored buildings with hand-lettered signs with names like Immaculate Conception Pharmacy & in the cab with me are Watkins & J.J. who have taken it upon themselves to introduce me to one of the more fundamental aspects of being a merchant seaman & I’ve agreed to tag along for a look and maybe for a few drinks but I’ve also made it clear that I would never be interested in actually paying for sex not that it would be in conflict with my particular moral stance but that it was really just a matter of my preferring the ritual of wining & dining & having the feeling of having achieved something on my own & not just with my money & then we're pulling into the huge parking lot of the Blue Goose which looks like a big blue airplane hangar & we pay the driver & step inside & it’s bigger than an Oktoberfest tent & all decked out with bamboo walls & a thatched palm roof & fishing nets suspended from the rafters full of conch shells & dried starfish & glass fishing floats & sitting along the bar are several women of uncommon & mind-boggling beauty & me & Watkins & J.J. sit down at a table & are soon joined by three women one of which is without a doubt one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen & drinks are bought & jokes are cracked & the afternoon slides comfortably into a boozy evening & though I’m determined to stay faithful to my particular resolution I can feel something tugging at me gnawing at me coming in from some unprotected flank & when Gloria invites me back to her room under the pretense of showing me some pictures in her photo album I’m of course all-too-aware of the inherent danger but agree to go anyway curious to see what one of these rooms is actually like & much to my surprise they’re nowhere as grim as I had been expecting & actually sort of kitschy & cozy & not exactly uninviting & Gloria’s is full of stuffed animals & colored lights & shag rugs & pillows & a lava lamp next to the king-size water bed & whatever it was that was gnawing at me is now eating a hole in me & when I turn to say something to Gloria I see she’s already started to undress & now it’s more like an acid that is bubbling & hissing & dissolving the last few remnants of my well-intended resolution & as I begin to undress I’m thinking about a lot of things like J.J.’s sagely words of wisdom You pay for it one way or another and how getting naked & the jettisoning of conceptual baggage can be intrinsically wound up in each other & that maybe that taxi driver was actually right maybe this is the best whorehouse in all of Panama maybe in the whole damn world.