Natasha Dennerstein

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Bunga Merah (Red Flower)

The chilli salt peanuts, the mango, the ice,
the incense burning at the temple gate,
the jasmine soap on your skin and your hair and
the crash of the waves on the rocks of the wall.

 

The smoke of the cooking-fires of coconut husks
and your motor scooter gunning in the
setting sun. The gamelan sound, drowned by
the crash of the waves on the rocks of the wall.

 

The dirty little secrets you moaned in the night,
the beers the next day and the wash in the sea,
the fishes you caught me and cooked on the fire and
the crash of the waves on the rocks of the wall.

 

Your bone-white smile and your glittering black hair
and the blood-red hibiscus behind your ear,
you said something to me but all I recall is
the crash of the waves on the rocks of the wall.

 

I magic up your memory but all I recall is
the screech of your brakes, the sickening graunch.
It’s doing my head in, there’s no rest at all
from the slap of the waves on that fucking wall.

 

The pile of black soil at your boneyard plot,
the sweet cakes we ate there, the ginger tea,
the cigarette smoke in a clove-scented pall
and the crash of the waves on the rocks of the wall.