The island road
is straight and not long
between the ferries, east and west,
yet long enough
for us to forget, each time
we visit, that in the west village
there's only one room to rent.

We forget that each visit
we have had to share the room
with a stranger
and remember, too late,
that the stranger is always the same man,
tight-muscled, speechless,
tall, dark.

You can never make love
before an audience, even
a sleeping one—and this man
keeps a monkey who never sleeps,
a puckered face above the curtain rail
or between the bed's brass bars.

On our last visit, our last
attempt to reach and take
the westbound ferry, the stranger
was sick, the room
uneasy with his breathing;
so you insisted we take him back east
with us, a swaying dummy
on the bus, his black scalp
nodding, nodding, the fetal monkey
clamped in his hands,
staring.

Waiting for the ferry
we sat in a cafe and you fed them both
cookies sogged in tea,
pushing your fingers between their lips.

There was, as always, the concert
to celebrate the embarkation,
the choir bellowing
the national anthem; you and I
were jostled into separate rows of seats,
while back in the cafe the tall
stranger sat, left for dead.

After the final chord
I saw you, seats away, lean forward
to applaud, your short hem
lifted, black silk
flimsy between your girlish legs,
and I knew that when we left the concert
we would leave by different exits.

This year we have met each other
for the first time, curious
tourists watching the fog
for the island; when we ride
the bus to the west village, our hands
meeting for the first time,
we will have no fears
or memories.