Sattahip

Kim Waters

After the Dusit Thani
noodle breakfast and
Siam Country Club
lunch of water
-shucked oysters
and coconut-shell juice,
we headed out,
with our patient
driver, on an
air-conditioned
Asian safari to a
Thai fishing village.

Bridled with a Leica
camera you strolled
along the pier,
trying not to stare
at the fishermen
cooking early dinners
in makeshift woks,
avoiding the puddles
of chip-ice spewed
onto the greasy decks
from the trawler
ice machines and
holding our breaths
as we walked past
a tin-bowled vat
of banana shrimps.

Shyly you took
photos of the fish
drying in the sun,
the rails draped in
indigo nets and the
quarter moon-shaped
boats with their
green lantern wings.

Cited and documented,
we headed back
to the SUV
where we saw
a girl in a yellow
chequered shirt
sitting in a doorway
of a one-room house,
sorting shellfish,
giving freely her
smile.