The Poetry Corner

Picaroon

By Paul Cameron Brown

Scouting the sun thin clouds threadbare vests barely to cover the horizon. the heat or the day, canine, a hot tongue's intensily splashing yr face. The docks are quiet, prawn trawlers unloading gear gar fish at the surface of the water echoing little fins like tiny waves green into the shallows. Bubbles anchor the lagoon- changing rivulets into sand stone walls numbered in shards of glass trade universal currency but, beware, the proprietor cobblestones up to his door, a candle in the window-stoop, a creeking gate opened as an afterthought. Come the picaroon. Spanish adventurer lesser known rogue, thief a smile like piano keys huevos sent back. I've seen the parfumerie the snake pit, mongoose burrowing into the hills after serpentine fer-de-lance, want bigger things waves can't splash away, scrawled slogans to turn the human tide. A bottle sits menacingly on the table- a universe on its own, imagine her little water droplets the key to unerstanding a woman firm to the grasp bare-shouldered, lips to the moon in twilight. A coin stepped on in the street perhaps a sou, a centime, centavo a petty return for rusting bells wedding the pavement, a centotaph alluding to sacrifice or toil in the fields to gain one circular disc. Bring a case of wine those Puerto Rican girls are dying to meet you, the tune belts out and I see a yacht riding emerald waves, think of swimming out to greet her, my skin opening the water like a lizard's tongue, a sheaf of leaves pressed back, a rock pitched to dislodge a noisy cat. Who tempers desire in the tropics when the air is to eat, sand golden griddles a harvest of warm wealth piled as a miser's hoard, green & more green skirting the city, experience my sacred vessel of purity. Think or cliff vines mucous, little curtains then pathways up to the final alley psychologically taut.