Graham Clifford
Stealing Summer
He sprawls among pregnant old men
bewildered in baseball caps,
and bristled pork-crackling wives.
Worn-out evergreens flop and nod
insects into the bright cyan pool.
His wife swats a butterfly off her belly.
She velcros on a tin-foil collar
to encourage sunlight up her nose,
a smudge of amber, flying powder
on the back of her hand.
The ancient hotel moggy pads over
dozy from being black in the sun
to show off a blood-flecked starfish
twitching at the base of its question-mark tail.
It’s always summer here. Or at least late spring.
Daydreaming at a gull,
his gaze snags on the chalk-dust moon.
Orchids blurt livid Rorschach smears and polka dots.
A tights-coloured jelly-fish flops and folds over
and inside out in a meek tide
that thrums the beach like it’s at work
and being watched.
He barely sleeps all week,
garlic soup and frappé fermenting
along sore demijohn innards.
But when his lids do slide closed,
his Lilo chafing the poolside’s concrete lip,
or twisted into his sheets, a bleached dawn
at last seeping from the curtains,
he dreams a muffling inch of snow has settled
on date palms and hire cars.
Page(s) 6-7
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