The memory of an orange shed
Where a homily in lacquered wood
Embodied a dream of a family
A natural mystic clan emerged from trees.
It suited the locust bean, at least,
And pidgin peas, the goat-crossed coral street
Where cats were leashed in church grass
And chickens foraged freely.
Now I sit in Hungry's Restaurant
With the mid-day Mt. Gay crowd
Burying an inarticulate prayer.
For what was
Never happened
Except as I was told how to feel
The people wearing smiles like flowers
Were never revealed.
The first sight was all we got:
Overwhelming white with sky-blue sea.
The sudden suites and green estates
Will never take the hunger away
For an unfamiliar country
And so we forgot, not sanctified
By pebble roads, we had a purpose.
All the love you gave fell through
But a boy still waits in the sand for you
To carve a lizard king.
