by PETER ROBERTS
I undertake this ritual each night
post the dishes seated on the rendered
balcony a rhapsody of bougainvillea
below as the sun slowly deconstructs into
the calm of the Arafura Sea across which
glides the scent of pandanus and durian
from the spice islands to the north.
My ears full of iPod piping the much loved
nasal ambiguity of Tangled up in Blue I
baptize the humidity in my throat and soul
with bitter beer whose sweetness never
fails to amaze bringing me back to me
as sure as the yachts tacking port to seek
slumber in the timid marina of Cullen Bay.
The thin approaching dark of the tropics is
more an embrace than a cloak holding me
present the long flight over vast desert now
impotent and I can’t get over this song ‘but
the past was close behind’ as always posing
the impossible temptation to again trawl the
mangroves for mud crabs amid the snags.
The locals say it is too cool to swim so I
watch a couple holding hands on the quay
savour the smell of the barbecue next door
overtaken by a fresh feeling of venue without
fixtures or furniture a single frame like the
deep blue of the winter ocean to gaze outward
and absorb why I prefer vacation to holiday.