In the square

Exhausted, sun-stroked, we sat
after hours of tying not to admit I'd gotten us lost
I gulped tepid water, pretending
that my thirst might be quenched.
Shade. The obliging trees of an unfamiliar village square,
Foreign bodies unused to Moroccan sun,
we rest.

Cigarettes appear, in an attempt to blend in.
I do not smoke.
As our talk turns to the nature of happiness,
I begin to reconsider.
I thirst for the taste of paper smoldering to ash between your fingers.
I believe you, when you say happiness is a poor child
you befriended in an alley by gifting a toy car.
You may not own him
or command his every secret
but you, at least,
would know him
if he passed you in the street.
His hand raised in greeting
And your response rolled out like smoke
exhaled over a native tongue.

I swallow more water.
The others are still discussing happiness
academic, abstract, now, but no less real than your barefoot boy.
It is as present, as possible for them as the sweat on their necks
the weight of sundry electronic devices in REI backpacks
the provocation of color in the spray paint on sand-colored walls.
They do not worry that we are lost.
They are paper, warm tobacco on your wet lips
I am hot ashes falling from your fingers in the
stubborn, stagnant afternoon air.