Now and again, I glimpsed that openness -
The combers rolling in, on Lagos beach,
Off the south Atlantic, where a single
diplomat
From the Old World, in Panama hat
And linen jacket, broke the dazzling reach
Of sand unto infinity. Second-guessed,
Too late now to be Adam, I undressed
At the rainbow's end of Songkla, Ko Samet,
Abandoned military towns and emptied zones
Of refugee litter. History had passed,
The beaches beckoned, sea and sky were blue -
But dive as I might, there was no way through
To the first innocence, to the great unknown.
