SHUTTLE BOY

A child’s head breaks out of the blue lagoon

A beautiful bronzed boy thin like a cheetah surges skyward

Impelled upward by eight clenched hands

Cupping calloused feet.

The platform of toes in sand sinks downward in lift off

As thrusters of feet, thighs, arms and clenched mouths

Explodes through Polynesian surf

Expending spherically ascending

The laughing spluttering shuttle child cat that

Twists, and flips backwards artfully

Into the white foam

Of cascading silver droplets,

Beaching beneath the slender legs

Of wild palms laughing

At The Royal Tahitian