Homage to Edward Lear

Once
long ago
I met a girl on a beach,
on a small island
where the Bongs grow
tall and proud,
and she had,
as I recall, 
just finished swimming.
 
Her eyes were an unusual green
and she talked to me in a quiet voice
all the while nibbling gently
on a pea pod.
 
Above her naval and
slightly to the left
she had a tattoo of a rather 
incredulous looking owl 
which I noticed but tried to ignore.
 
And as we walked up to
the small beach house 
that I hadn’t noticed before
a cat came out to great us,
or maybe just her because as she
picked it up
it gave me a flash of teeth and a steely gaze
before settling down around her shoulders, 
its tail tracing out the line of her jaw,
its eyes glaring out from behind the waterfall of her hair.
 
Inside she set about preparing a meal
of honey glazed pork mince
thick with fat,
which we ate with more of those 
vaguely minty peas.
We drank and i felt my tongue melt and slide away from me.
 
The next thing I knew 
my hair was coming out in clumps and the girl,
her breasts were heaving free in the moonlight.
The sand was white and her skin was white and the moon was white and ghostly
but the sea was a black and evil and I had to get away from it
for fear it would swallow me whole,
and when she started talking about marriage I felt sick
and I told her so.
 
We returned to her shack and I
strummed at an old guitar that had washed up on the shore,
loose Nick Drake songs, while she danced
swirling around the small room with abandon.
And I knew I loved her then
but also that I wouldn’t always
so later, when she breathed softly and soundly into her folded arms,
I snuck away to the hills 
with naught but a few silent tears
that sparkled and danced
by the light of the moon,
the moon,
the moon, 
that danced by the light of the moon.

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