A CHINESE GIRL IN THE SEA AT SAMET

Tropical Beach in Thailand

A CHINESE GIRL IN THE SEA AT SAMET

She smiles as only the young smile.
What is your name?
“Ah Li.”
Where are you from?
“Shanghai.”
What is your work?
“I am an accountant.”
What is your religion?
“I have none.”
She smiles.
“When we are young
they teach us,
Don’t believe in God.
Believe in the Committee.”
She smiles.
“My mother is a Buddhist.”
What kind?
“My mother has a Buddha.
She burns incense.
She kneels.
She asks what she wants.”
She smiles.
“When I am young,
I have blood cancer.
My mother pray to her Buddha.
I get well!
Maybe one day
I am a Buddhist.”
She smiles.

The sun is getting hot.
She turns, dives under the water
and swims towards the raft.

*

UNDER THE DARK OF THE VINE VERANDA

Coral dust blows
off the white beach
onto the slatted table.

Overhead, a trellis
of brown wood and green leaves
and, pushing through, dense clusters
of pink and white
Ladies’ Finger Nails,
sweet scented with a trace of lime.

An orchestra of cicadas,
the rustling of a million
tiny silver bells.
A fine sprinkling sound.
Like frost.

*

CHRISTMAS DAY ON SAMET ISLAND

begins in the half dark
with a six inch huntsman spider
exploring my chair,
ends with a Laotian girl,
with all the charm
of sibylline eyes,
wearing a fourteen inch centipede
as a writhing, living bracelet
that digs its claws into her slender arm.

In between,
courtesy of Thomas Edison,
there are Greensleeves, carols,
white Christmases,
and red-nosed reindeer
in different kinds of English
and Chinese fireworks.


From Bamboo Leaves by Brian Taylor