Dinner At Eight

    At times, I thought of swizzling white rum
    in the tropics (not as a vocation),
    dropping into the club
    for a round of tennis
    before dinner at eight
    or a quiet set of darts
    before retiring.

    I had grown accustomed to my new routine
    (at least vicariously).
    In the best Somerset Maugham tradition
    I would dress for dinner,
    decline to be patronizing,
    avoid the potential slur
    if crisp linen did not appear
    regularly on my bed or table.
    I still found time to stop
    for breakfast coffee,
    take a moment from regimen
    to fondle fresh, wet flowers,
    look over the balcony at the
    blueness of the bay.

    The metaphysical qualities that come
    into play erode such morning somnambulations.
    The heat depreciated any vainglorious
    attempts to lionize the native Caribbean rum.
    Tennis and darts become ho-hum,
    more of a task than a pleasant diversion.
    The little yellowed board seemed
    to symbolize not convivial cordiality
    but crabbed provincialism.

    The tie & collar were intolerable
    against the saline tropic night and
    seemed rigid in a place and time
    the locals could not possibly share.
    In short, such things celebrated my apartness.

    Linen rarely, if ever, appeared
    and to resort to complaints
    resulted in only furthering
    the distance between one and his hosts.
    Even the coffee tasted bitter and seemed
    unsuited to the needs of an interloper.
    Neither was fruit juice the promised manna.
    And one can take only so much nostalgic flower warbling.
    The hummingbirds and oleander came to grow
    as commonplace and exhausting as the rain.

    I began ruminating thoughts back to my previous existence.
    Surprised at my illogical shift in allegiances,
    I began stealing thoughts more and more surreptitiously
    about the naturalness of working a full day,
    donning the apparel of a civilized man,
    dropping the white man's burden.
    Disgust filled me with my former Rousseauian yearnings.
    With trepidation, one's dreams
    can erect barriers more effective
    than the most ill-sponsored illusions.