Beirupdate, water

We walk taxied streets and waterfront promenades. No beaches only rocks and shirts and shiny shoes for half a dollar. In bright colours we walk under flags of gold and green that we see to be Hezbollah, so we pass bowed and hushed but then embarrassed when boyscouts hand us cookies. Then we drive. On roads like pouring water our driver shows us a small boy who returns to windows with factory alcohol in pink plastic. Our driver drinks and drinks a beer before we see Byblos. Roads and souks of cobbled stone draw a coastal paradise. We walk a pier of seaspray and perfect sights all night and faraway lights. From scotch to roadside drinks and beers and scotch again before local liquors that look like semen on ice and taste like anise and our host says fuck your life. Below and beyond the dead zone now we steal mugs and waltzing couples to the taste of hops and scotch some more. Our driver drinks and eats nothing and we laugh in the car while we ride with my hands over his eyes like we’ve already survived. We play five-o-one and finish on deuce checkouts but whoever wins concedes to the abyss while our hosts depart to goodbyes and girls not from around here. Meetings with Kiev and Hackney and Bogotá and lastly Glasgow who touches me beneath his jacket and tomorrow someone says we’re in the shallow part of the pool.