Revolution Lovers

(for Mark & Gemma)

Female Frigates ride warm rising currents.

Soar over Pegasus in an arrow of Ms against

Dour dulled-skies.   Heads, beaks, bellies and breasts

Powdered white, turn eyes.  Give accent to black

Plumed frocks, and long forked-tails that trail

Magnificent wings like kites in Guyana come

Easter-time.

And a Kiskadee freshens up for her partner:

Bathing only in the best pool, she swoops low,

Quick splash-tousle of feathers, she swoops out,

Perches on the greyish-brown back of a poolside

Chair, polishes her beak against the hardened

Plastic until it gleams.  Sends out a high-pitched

Screech like a straight-tubed Saxophone

Fine-tuning itself for practice at the Sea Wall

Bandstand.

Her pretty feet, hint of waffle-brown, pad along

Terracotta brick-edge.  Two glasses of coconut

Water, two straws, two dainty hands and I know

She’s dreaming bottles.  High walls of painted glass,

Vivid red, maybe. Like her toe-nails.  And swirls

Of gold, maybe.  Like her hair.  Just one of many

Reasons I adore Quincy Magoo’s Haitian muse, 

His beacon of bright.  His revolution lover.