I cannot wait till I am there.

 

Finally the feel of heat on my impatient skin

To bask like an unscaly monitor on a hardened sun lounger

Slats digging into flesh just so

Mouth parted – coming up for air! –

Just so.

 

Sweat, at first struggling to bead against humidity

runs clean tiny rivulets.

Arms over sides not reaching the unwanted props of magazines and drink

Browning like a buttered potato

Sea salted.

 

Oily limbs, shiny nails, exposed feet happy and defiant

Precautions taken reluctantly

The sun pins me down with wave after wave of unadulterated equatorial heat

My back up against the world.

 

Eyes shut, I take in the dry clackering of spindly palm leaves

the stretching ocean glinting beyond my toes

the rampant screetch,

the insistent whine of the jungle

pulsing light, shade and damp behind me.

 

I know the little Beasts that swim and crawl and climb in the swamps

Rubbing their little legs together

 

And all the while I’ll lie

Hot, heavy, indulgently oppressed

A sweaty, four-pronged fleshy human speck on the globe

Waiting for the crack and gasp

Of my 3 o’clock thunderstorm