New room. Pillows thumped into shape.

Twilight, pink and slim as hotel soap

unwrapped and lathered, shrinks. 
From the bed, two small windows, one

above the other, separated by a strip of wall

which breaks the contained palm in two. 
The wall is where you don’t want to be,

where the dark call originates, so opt

for the tree elongated by the disruption. 
Waves raise marbled faces and unravel

a lace-of-foam that the calmer parts of us

find touching. Know an increase in the sea
breeze would make it so-so. 
			§
Your serviette tonight is a snow-white

bird-of-paradise folded by a village girl

who has chosen the name Dawn.
The couple is quite. Their eyes soliloquize

(inside a fetching silence that threatens to over

extend itself) a shift from garden innocence 
to an inkling otherwise, conveyed in down

cast glances, and this hesitation is the branch

jammed in the spokes of a moment which had hitherto
recommended itself as the quintessential vehicle,

the sure wheel. Some running repairs and a walk

digests it best. Admire now the black butterfly 
against a backdrop of palms. Swoon under

coconut clusters safe in the knowledge

there are sharks offshore but you braved it, 
bobbing beside humble junks that are in turn

dwarfed by trawlers. Kicking the emptiness

with purpose, you’ve grown less ticklish underwater.