A villa on the edge
My daughter swimming laps.
I lose count after 200,
she’s not best pleased.
For my penance I take her down the cliff
to the rocky beach.
She snorkels in the pools.
I dread the journey back;
she beats me by a mile.
She watches lizards soaking up the heat.
I shower and almost straightaway
feel dry and hot again.
We drive into the mountains.
It’s cooler here and empty villages,
without a soul in sight.
The border guards ignore us
until we move too close.
Scowls: we back the car away.
Shopping, we wake the elderly couple
sleeping in their bed in the shade beside the shop.
The freezer is full of meat, and blood stained.
We eat delicious hard crusted bread
and set off to find Aphrodite,
then lunch by the sea.
Evening-we park in the town square.
We leave it,
keys in the ignition
in case it needs to be moved.
My daughter orders her favourite;
aubergines courgettes and fried haloumi,
Water melon, and then ice-cream.
In the morning I’m startled by a goat,
his head poked through the bathroom window.
It’s already warm
and daughter’s swimming laps again.
Bilby
Araminta
Is it Bognor Regis?
Possibly not, but certainly Paradise with friendly bathroom Goat
Hello Dolores.
No, it’s not Bognor, it’s a bit further away than that, and most certainly hotter. It’s Cyprus!
How’s life in your part of the world?
Ah-hah! Makes me dream even more of going there.
In our seasidey part it’s exceeding sunny thank you (sometimes), and very busy. What matters an odd deluge when there are windbreaks and beach huts and only two and a half weeks left of school hols…
You capture the essence of the place so very well in your poem here, Araminta. Good story-telling too.
Thank you, Shermeen.
I’m pleased you enjoyed it. It was a little different from my usual “pomes”. Have you visited Cyprus?
No, I have not
but as I say, you depict it very well here. Such is the power of the written word, sometimes just a few appropriately put together words can open far-reaching vistas.
Ah, that is most kind of you, Shermeen.
Sorry for the delay, I’ve been in Dorset visiting my daughter and second grandson, now three weeks old.
She was the one swimming laps in the pool age thirteen!