Barbados
(for Charla Barker)

It is 12 midnight. I am sitting here, on the patio of Room 110
of the Caribbee Beach Hotel, Hastings, Barbados,
listening to the Atlantic replaying , like an old vinyl record,
the philosophy of the sea, on which the light  from an aeroplane
passing overhead falls like a brand new stylus.

It is hot. And the half empty bottle of Hennessey
I bought at the duty-free shop in Miami is not helping things either.
My shirt is unbuttoned. I am sweating and thinking of you.
What it would have felt like to have you here, at this hour,

Your voice drowning out the old drooling gramophone of the Sea
Your long,  blonde,  hair falling on my shoulders like the silk
in the wrist of the waves. Your fingertips and lips running all over
my entire  geography like that ship in the distance,

all lights on,  tracing the erogenous zones of the ocean
the way history once ran over this island
leaving it with only one  lovesong: The desire
to be left alone by the West to complete its own epic of love.