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What a hot day it is! for

Jane and me above the scorch

of sun on jungle waters to be

paddling up and down the Essequibo

in our canoe of war-surplus gondola parts.

We enjoy it, though: the bats squeak

in our wrestling hair, parakeets

bungle lightly into gorges of blossom,

the water's full of gunk and

what you might call waterlilies if you're

silly as we. Our intuitive craft

our striped T shirts and shorts

cry out to vines that are feasting

on flies to make straight the way

of tropical art. "I'd give a lempira or two

to have it all slapped onto a

canvas" says Jane. "Have like

lazy flamingos look the floating

weeds! and the infundibuliform

corolla on our right's a harmless Charybdis!

or am I seduced by its ambient

mauve?" The nose of our vessel sneezes

into a bundle of amaryllis, quite

artificially tied with ribbon.

Are there people nearby? and postcards?

We, essentialy travellers, frown

and backwater. What will the savages

think if our friends turn up? with

sunglasses and cuneiform decoders!

probably. Oh Jane, is there no more frontier?

We strip off our pretty blazers

of tapa and dive like salamanders

into the vernal stream. Alas! they

have left the jungle aflame, and in

friendly chatter of Kotzebue and Salonika our

friends swiftly retreat downstream

on a fowery float. We strike through

the tongues and tigers hotly, towards

orange mountains, black taboos, dada!

and clouds. To return with absolute treasure!

our only penchant, that. And a red-

billed toucan, pointing t'aurora highlands

and caravanserais of junk, cries out

"New York is everywhere like Paris!

go back when you're rich, behung with lice!"