I had to
go
all the way
out
to the
Airport Roundabout
past the crumbling
pier
and
the ruins
of fabled
Gunboat beach
scene of boyhood angling
and jellyfish stings
Just to get
a good
look
at the place
A generation
removed
It
seems so
unremarkable up close
even the Old Fort
has
lost much of the
forbidding grandeur it
Imposed on us as
Kids
dodging and pushing back
macca bushes
keeping our footing on
the ascent
to
the tower hill
standing
Invincible on the
summit ad
fooling ourselves that we could
see Cuba
across the shimmering
Caribbean
Whiling away
hours
in the Library
amid the hubbub
of shoppers
and the sounds of
Culture
Fred Locks
and
James Brown ["Sex Machine"]
blaring from the record shop
Flashes of memory
like ViewMaster slides
on speed
like bits in the kaleidoscope
like the undies of pre-teen
girls
as they race each other
in the schoolyard
Vaccines
Anthems
Skits
ring games
Chocolate and Cherry
milk in a
box
and donkeycarts
bearing everything from
coconuts to old
bottles
driven by
old men painted
dark by the sun
with rasps and lisps
barking
"Geddyap!!
to their resigned
charges
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