Island poems: The arrival

A new series using less words. Because sometimes poems just. say. more.

This place:

hot in every corner -

the sea, clear as glass

and the sky singing blue in an ever-stretch of newness -

took us in

like lost skylarks.

And were we ready

To emerge from a sleep above the water?

Sippy cups and picture books in our hands

Like choice.

Unlike the darkest echoes of others, beached, frail, bone-thin

Barely alive from 30 dead days at sea.

I look for bitterness in his face:

the driver of the 80's Ford Cortina -

all smiles, wide-open windows and reggae tunes.

He takes the coast road

(not the low lane cut through thick swishy fields of cane)

to the rambling yellow house

whose white louvre doors open out like wings.

Now, lumbering in the dark,

We are the foreign fruits

Among mangoes, banana leaves thick as blankets.

Outside, the high-octave whistle of - frogs? -

Surrounds us like a wall.

This is where we'll stay.