A Call-Girl in Cartagena de Indias


Blacked out limo – well, saloon –
Pimp, or punter?
Stepped out into blinding sunshine.
Flicks her head
To loosen her hair
Like you did.
I sitting
Across the street –
A roadside cafe
Tables and I spilled out
Like so much flotsam
Left behind by a retreating tide.
Right towards me over a rubble-strewn
Cracked concrete
Third world kra.
She stared furiously right through me, sizing up
The condominium building to my left.
For a short while
She leant on one leg
Hand on hip
And pouted,
Deciding which buzzer.
She ties her blouse
To reveal
Your tapering waist.

Thirty or forty minutes later
I sitting
In the dirty sea.
I spy her
Walking along the beach
Looking down at the sand.
Three storks fly between us
As brown as the Caribbean.