By Michael Wagg

I’d intended last week’s blog to be the last, and to leave it lost in Barry Manilow’s Bermuda Triangle. But having had a couple of days rest I found myself scribbling this, which I hope you’ll take as a light-hearted farewell from my angle. Mr Tucker was our taxi driver for most of the last week. Thanks for reading.

Mr Tucker

Mr Tucker took us
wide eyed from St George’s
through Tucker’s Town and Devon
to Fourways, Georgia heavy
on our suitcase minds
Mr Tucker took us

Mr Tucker took us
bleary eyed to prison,
wide Sargasso Sea behind the walls
where the waiting young perform
the beach scene in their minds
Mr Tucker took us

Through Somerset and Southampton
to Dockyard, big ships sailing in,
grabbing rum and shorts and out again,
filling Horseshoe bay
like ducks on a hurricane
Mr Tucker took us

Mr Tucker took us
back to school, learning Shakespeare’s
new minted words:
baseless, barefaced, bump
countless, critic, swagger
Knock, knock – who’s there?

Mr Tucker
took us to the stage and back
shouting in the evening
over tree frog chorus,
lamentings heard i’ th’ air where
Mr Tucker took us

To a Bermuda beach
breaking our toes in electric blue
washing our wounds in pink sand,
the gift of the parrot fish
and the weight of the road
Mr Tucker took us home –

Indiana, Texas and North Carolina,
Hawai’i, California, Florida and Georgia,
from the Swizzle Inn
where we swaggered out again
to Canada Water,
Mr Tucker took us.