On an island dressing
for a thousand more,
on a beach at low tide
walking the shore,
feeling like Crusoe
or the pen of Defoe
the thoughts come and go
like the days,

and they're speaking German
which
I don't understand
I want my Mother not the
Fatherland.

What love,

A pearl from some Eastern eye
Delhi or maybe Mumbai

like a painting by
Modigliani
she haunts me.

The islands slip into the bays
the days follow on behind.

She's still there on the canvas
with those eyes that shadow
and I become a shadow
too.