At Firefly by John Barton

                Visiting Noel Coward’s house, Jamaica, 1988

It appeared as if someone had just left

Racked dishes to air-dry, panes in a cracked
Window rattling above the dusty sink

What’s to see not the view but derelict
Kitchen gardens where in red soil he raised

Pimento, false thyme, and ginger, pollens
Blowing in, his last long-time friend absent

Their home willed to the state, then to decay
Your viewfinder catching me near a drop

To coaxing waves, a sultry thousand feet
I angled my shoulders against, marine

Flash of heat almost felling me, a lost
Path winding to the beach, like us discreet

The surf’s roaring white noise a thoughtless tease.

— from Juniper Volume 5, Issue 2