SAINT JULIAN PRESS

KEVIN MCGRATH ~ POET

 

​​
​F A M E
 
By
 
KEVIN MCGRATH

​ 
I – 2 6
 
 
Do you remember the pink oleander
And the hot breeze of an afternoon
A courtyard’s breathless shade and
Jasmine darkening a night with sweet
 
Do you remember the cool of vines
Beneath which we sat and watched
As bamboo switched in the air and
A turquoise sea crackled and flashed
 
How cicadas screeched and rasped
During noon’s white ferocity
Moonlight made a world abstract
Monochrome with silver candour
 
Do you recall the lemon blossom
In the square as we walked home
From the port at night - you and I
On that island without a name
 
I put some oleander by your bed
Before you woke one morning
Furtively I watched you sleeping
Flirting beside a watering stream
In your mind you were not with me
 
Where are the paths and groves now
And the heated dust on our skin
And afternoon behind walls when
We lay down in a shuttered room
Wakening to bathe at a cistern