Dream of A Colonial Tourist

 

(i.)

Instead of paradise

a crowd of mosquitoes,

possibly deadly

angry monkeys,

no shelter as advertised,

our guide retreats in a helicopter

shredding the clouds

over shores unswimmable

we huddle together

quiet as tropical light

fades to black, to try

to get back to where we started

means walking through a jungle

in the dark

we remain

hopeless/tourists

with more arriving

lured by the same pamphlets

we are now standing inside, we

are now standing inside loss

without words

(without words

we are nothing)

and leave at once

together.