I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
　　The palm trees on the reverse
　　are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
　　What we have are the usual
　　fractured coke bottles and the smell
　　of backed-up drains, too sweet,
　　like a mango on the verge
　　of rot, which we have also.
　　The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
　　& their tracks; birds & elusive.
　　
　　Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
　　day after the other rolling on;
　　I move up, it's called
　　awake, then down into the uneasy
　　nights but never
　　forward. The roosters crow
　　for hours before dawn, and a prodded
　　child howls & howls
　　on the pocked road to school.
　　In the hold with the baggage
　　there are two prisoners,
　　their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
　　of queasy chicks. Each spring
　　there's race of cripples, from the store
　　to the church. This is the sort of junk
　　I carry with me; and a clipping
　　about democracy from the local paper.
　　
　　Outside the window
　　they're building the damn hotel,
　　nail by nail, someone's
　　crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
　　can't be all bad, but
　　does it? At this distance
　　you're a mirage, a glossy image
　　fixed in the posture
　　of the last time I saw you.
　　Turn you over, there's the place
　　for the address. Wish you were
　　here. Love comes
　　in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
　　& on, a hollow cave
　　in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.