There is nothing more beautiful than the scent of a woman’s skin.
I taste salt tang, sun-tan oil and ice-creams.
The language of this sense is universal.
Even the sand has an odour; cupping it in my hands,
I bring the grains up to my nose, inhale.
Their smell holds the secret smile of the sun.
Each fresh breeze brings another scent to me:
Lunch cooking on the grill; the heady blossoms
(The name of which our guide could not remember);
A miasma of individual perfumes
From the Ann Summers Party to my right.
(And behind me, a whiff of rancid sweat -
The Englishman who never takes a shower.)
Children giggle by, spattering wet sand salvos.
I breathe a salty lungful. My skin remembers water.
I rise and put my hands upon your shoulders
And breathe the secret hollow of your neck.
There is nothing more beautiful than the scent of a woman’s skin.
(1999)
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