Inexplicable

There I was, sitting, in a white metal chair,
its design of curls eating into my behind,
fag in one hand, glass of mild, cool wine
in the other, staring at the blood red petals
of the tropical flowers in the hedge before me,
out there in the deep warmth of a february evening,
out there after a day in the high sun and the leaping surf,
while scratching at the hairs on my grizzled
chin, the salt and the pepper, with
my smallest finger,
when in an instant of a light flash,
with a slap of moist sole on hard, flat stone,
a girl, eighteen, nineteen,
leapt in front of me – water sliding down
her flaxen hair, around its waves and
little curls, and
‘D’you want to take my picture?’ she asked -
cute smile, American twang -
and water gliding down her neck
and full breasts, down her belly, down
the green, olive green, the black, charcoal
black, of her bikini,
down her legs, angled each to the other.

Feeling my Blackberry, its slimness
fortunate in my pocket, my trouser
pocket, and time expanding like balloon,
I decided to lie;
‘I don’t have a camera.’
She smiled more deeply and raised her hand
and we high-fived in
a moment of palm to palm,
flats of fingers and, then, she exclaimed
‘Oh my god, I love you.’
and ran a way, weaving a path
between the palms, monkey puzzles,
coconut trees, arms outstretched, yelling
‘Oh my god, I love that guy’.

In her journey of joy, by the hotel pool,
she met with a huddle of friends, bemused,
silencing them with:
‘Oh my god, I met this guy and
I love him’.
I thought of the security
of my marble-floored room
with its flash bathroom where,
even so, the loo made a noise
recurrently like the breathing
of a sleeping hippo,
and I ran.