Red-head with Phosphorus, 1976.(Poem)

 
RED-HEAD WITH PHOSPHORUS, 1976 
 
   Red-haired girl in a white bikini 
   who he saw for the first time aglow 
   on a launch moored in a Rottnest bay 
   twenty-five years ago, 
 
   inviting them up from their sailing dinghy 
   to share the owner's champagne: 
   as the green water lapped in the sunlight, 
   as they bobbed on the mooring chain. 
 
   He was, he recalls, a painful mess 
   and she was sweet and kind, 
   both certainly more than he deserved, 
   and more than he'd looked to find. 
 
   Quaffing champagne in the cockpit, 
   and diving off the bow. 
   It would be perfect, the owner remarked, 
   if they could stop time now. 
 
   And she, and his friend, and the owner 
   laughed together in the sun. 
   He was the moody, silent dork, 
   just trying to offend no-one. 
 
   Later they took the dinghy 
   and they sailed in the moonlit bay. 
   He remembers that phosphorescent time 
   as if it were yesterday, 
 
   or yesternight, to be precise 
   as they sailed through the easterly blow 
   with the launches and yachts at their anchors, 
   and the phosphorus aglow, 
 
   with the dinghy's ...