Cologne Misadventure

All night we cruise down the Rhine,

navigate sixteen concrete locks,

grateful recent rains have raised water levels

enough for safe passage.

In the morning, we anchor in Cologne,

take a shuttle bus to downtown,

pass through a gauntlet of carved saints,

pause beneath Gothic arch,

admire stained-glass windows

depicting stations of the cross,

regal insignia, a heart spilling flames.

Later, we meet a tattooed cousin,

his pierced and inked girlfriend,

practice shaky German, marginal English

over lunch, followed by coffee,

bowls of plum and berry gelato.

At the chocolate museum,

we take advantage of free public restrooms,

sniff overpowering cocoa scent,

accept handfuls of foil-wrapped candy.

They hug us, climb into their car

for a four-hour drive home to Hamburg.

Spurning transport back to our ship,

we wander through a botanical garden,

purchase bottles of water

from a closet-sized grocery.

A riverbank trail meanders

past white townhouses with red geraniums,

along a fenced shipyard

under bejeweled blanket of berries.

Ten and a half miles later, we reach the pier,

just before the captain’s six-p.m. curfew,

return to our cabin for a much-needed shower.

Jennifer Lagier lives a block from the stage where Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar during the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. She serves two rescue dogs, dabbles in photography, walks 7-9 miles daily. Her work appears in a variety of anthologies ezines, and literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools, edits the Monterey Review, helps coordinate Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Recent publications: Rising Voices: Poems Toward a Social Justice Revolution, Syndic Literary Journal, Fog and Light: San Francisco Through the Poets Who Live There, Second Wind: Words & Art of Hope & Resilience. She has published nineteen books, most recently: Meditations on Seascapes and Cypress (Blue Light Press), COVID Dissonance (CyberWit), and Camille Chronicles (FutureCycle Press).