Caye Caulker, Belize

In a motorboat skimming across Caribbean

Blue, the shirtless Islander pilots like a pirate.

One-hand on the wheel, he tells today's tourists

Stories of his Great Barrier Reef Boyhood.

Listening with lust, novice young snorkelers

Adjust their unfamiliar equipment, and awkwardly

Await their turn in the turquoise below.

A ceiling fan revolves, whirs, hums, delivers

Tiny breezes across naked bodies, sprawled

Like already forgotten suburbs. From the wall, a lazy

Lizard watches the only movement in the room–

A single thumb stroking a satisfied cheek. Outside,

The regularly-scheduled afternoon thunderstorm

Tells the stirring lovers in Neverland: Go back to sleep.

Escaping through make-believe walls, the sound

Of reggae rhythms, melodies.  At sunset, lured
By unbroken beats, sandaled feet wander from boats
And beds toward the bar. Reefer floats on the sea air.

Barefoot and nearly bare-bodied, American girls sway

With Rasta boys on floors of sand. Sometimes,
They stay, and raise beautiful blue-in-the-moonlight babies.

But most times, they manage to barely not miss the boat,

the bus, the plane, and end up in a gray airport, inadequately
dressed, asleep on a cold seat, waiting for a ride home.