CORAL BAY
Tavern: Happy Hour
somebody has already been sick on the
grass and a woman in tight
clothes is dancing with herself
near the counter where blokes
in fishing gear are getting their
drinks:
Tim asks one of them how we can get to
see the whale sharks:
‘don’t ask me, mate,’ the bloke yells,
‘I’m just here for the piss:’
so we order our beers inside, two for
the price of one, for one hour:
and the TV spurts through the talk: ‘it’s
day four of the Commonwealth
Games: Australia’s ready to go:
we’re chasing gold today: and
it’s great to be an Aussie:’
and the tight-clothed lady dances and
she dances:
‘it’s just something I do,’ she calls out:
and a fisherman explains how his mate’s
boat holed itself on a reef that
was covered over by the glaze
of light on blue water, on the
blue transparent water:
‘shit happens, don’t it?’ he bellows, ‘but
she’ll be right, mate, she’ll be
be right:’
then we go outside with our beers and
find a table in the light of the
lights that stare down at the
garden:
and the swimming pool shines and the
wet tables shine and the wet
glasses shine on the shining
tables, and legs and arms and
necks and faces shine with the
sweat of the night and the ooze
of tanning oils and body lotions:
and a man lies where he has fallen, his
swollen belly shining white in
the light and the wet heat:
and the music from the speakers on the
poles among the trees fumes
and blasts and flares and rages:
and the trees’ leaves hang drained of
green as the lights shine on
them, shine on them, shine on
them such that the trees stand
with crippled shadows and dark
hearts in the lighted darkness:
and the darkness swells beyond the
lights and above the lights
and far beyond and far above,
so very far, out into the cold
shaking emptiness at whose
far reaches the quasars spew,
blaze brighter than bright as
they
gorge on dust, gas,
furying:
and the tight-clothed lady dances from
the tavern and looks about as
she dances and turns her back,
turns back to the counter where
blokes shout and curse and
scratch their balls:
and the music brays, bursts, and the leaves
shiver, and the lights stare and
they shine and they make things
shine, make all things shine:
a happy hour, a happy happy hour, one
happy hour