In a Tropical Garden
Into air like passion exhaled
and with unlikely speed, it rose erect
from the apex of tasselled skirts, stiff,
like a club against the delinquent monkeys.
For a week the rod thickened in heat
that rose from soil as red and wet as muscle,
tempting the bolts of tropical storms,
raindrops glistening down its veined sides.
Then the tip opened, pouting like an oboe.
Rolled membranes unfurled from tip to base:
a lingam relaxing from turgid to languid,
a pole pealed to a petal.
Soon there hung two pleated sheets,
luminous green sails suspended
along an arched mast of pink –
a dhow riding an African wind.
Not yet shredded by squalls, but entire,
immaculate, it cast its chlorophyll shade
over a bunch of fecund but inverted teats:
bananas filling with its fresh sun sap.