The Business Trip

Soon we would both be drunk. The deal was dead—
we knew before the undercarriage clunked—
so we teased some Nassau bankers for an hour
then caught a little plane to Georgetown
picked up a rental and found a bar.

Flushed and garrulous on rum and Red Stripe,
the swelter of a Bahamian night,
we joked at the expense of yachtie yanks.
Sullen cops leaned back against rough planks
watching their island girls twerk to reggae.

A brace-toothed trust-fund blonde from the Hamptons
promised to take me out Bonefishing.
Eyes bright she described how the Grey Ghost fight
like no other, skimming through the shallows.
I’d have gone but her number got away.

I drove drunk down to Little Exuma
weaving away from the roadside gullies.
4.20am and we only saw
one other car—parked dubiously off-road
its dark interior lit with soft red stars.

In the hallelujah-headache morning,
my boss sprawled in his pants with a pirate book.
Nervous of some unspoken intention
I took a snorkel and walked the white beach
but lost my guts amongst the lemon sharks.

The Business Trip

The idiot sun slipped to insolence
and the afternoon became overcast.
A one-armed man selling conch and snapper
by a painted roadside grapefruit shack laughed
“No man, don worry, you dem sharks won bite!”

Was it here on this low archipelago
the Earth lost faith with raising land from sea?
I’ve heard there are feral pigs that swim
in the tax haven of the Exumas.
Shallow water pigs. Money men. Me.