To the Aquarium and Back (or Ten Memories of Durban)

The promenade took
twenty minutes to tramp along.
It took me.

Sand in corners,
beggars and gigglers, such different speeds
of life and a day.

At the end
I lay along as sharks swam longer
than me end-to-end.

In the sun
the curving turquoise noise of kids
ran dense.

Then I walked
past jolly gelatinous girls barely held
in loose black bikinis.

Thanked a pen
from a waitress walking on sand,
and a cider.

I sat alone
drank the insta-golden sea-scene,
and couldn’t shake the sharks.

I ate fish,
full from a drop of the ocean
which is too much.

Then I tired
of flip-flops which wore my feet
to blisters.

And I slipped
past hotel facades with old red years,
back to the quiet.