Sex on the beach

 

Peacock Alley 80 x 80 x 2 cm - mixed media on canvas

 

 

 

 

SEX ON THE BEACH

 

The word wonderful describes

being on the slow boat from

Athens to the islands. Her sleeping head

in my lap, eyelids trembling. Just yesterday

in London we were fighting. Got on/ off an airplane.

Boarded a big old rust bucket listing to starboard.

Souvlaki & bread. Plastic cup of Nescafe.

& presto we’re embedded in some magic.

 

On the boat I was reading

that a couple thousand years ago

men did the shopping & didn’t wear underpants

Socrates downloading his classic pick-up line

on a young man, “Where can I

find the Good & the Beautiful

my son?” & even getting directions there. Found them

near the Agora, spread out in the sun by an olive tree

learning the rules of logic while watching two oily  

adolescents wrestle in the dust. After, to the bath house.

 

Out where the blue of

water meets the blue of land

Athens destroyed the Persian fleet.

 

I think about Fate and Flux. But the Beautiful Goods intrude:

red sneakers, soft khaki shorts, tank-top enhanced assets.

 

A bird goes Ithaca! Ithaca! Ithaca! Then lifts off,

dropping a turd and three feathers. An omen?

 

Ships burning in the distance

are in truth pine trees enflamed by a brush fire.

 

Ten minutes from the skeletal, elegant temple of Apollo

was a cocktail called “Sex on the Beach.”

 

I still remember how that tasted.