For a Barmaid from Orient Bay

Entranced by the icecubes dissolving in my drink,

I sit, and I think,

Wondering if this mutual exile

Will reconcile…

*

What vision did you see

In moonlit clouds swirled by the passaat breeze,

That Elsewhere seemed so clear?

Whatever could it be

That blew you across vast and vengeful seas,

So far from all that held you dear?

*

Rum and pain and neon lights

On long and hot and throbbing nights

Make for aspartame dreams;

Castles of sand

Where the blind grasp of a frail and hopeful hand

Discovers only coarse and cutting dust;

Desiccated substance of illusions that, I suspect,

You did never truly trust.

*

Between sighs and sips of spirits vile

My eyes unwitting betray a smile;

Though invisible, now, among these concrete canyons,

Thronged with grey and sullen millions,

That Island,

Our Island,

Salty as tears,

Sharp as memory:

It must exist,

For there were You and Me.