Bombay Sapphire

Out here at the center of the world,
I’m drinking up time in my hotel room.
Clouds of incense and burning manure
are hanging like curtains on the afternoon.
From my window I see a parade
winding its way down to the bay,
and I see it through you, Victoria,
through your stare like a little girl’s.
I’m watching the people, so sad and free,
as they carry their statues of gods to the sea.
They carry them down to the center of the world.

Out here at the center of the world,
every eye beholds itself.
Temptation it turns the tides
but it only turns them back on themselves.
This pretty barmaid with a feather broom,
she’s holding my hand just a little too soon,
and I feel so light, Victoria,
like a paper flag unfurled,
with a message scribbled on it for you and for me.
I am flapping my arms by the edge of the sea.
I’m waving to you from the center of the world.

And I think we’re two jewels cut from the same crown,
Bombay sapphires with the points rubbed down,
trading each other off in different lands,
passing like bottles through different hands,
till our hearts are polished down
to the color of sand.

Praise the god who smiles on this place.
May he one day smile upon me.
I’m not as far off as I used to think.
At least not as far as you might want me to be.
I see the parade keeping perfectly still.
The moon is frozen on top of the hill.
And we’re like statues now, Victoria,
caught in a moment that slurred.
They say I am lord of you and you are lord of me,
but we’re sinking in the drink that they call the blue sea.
Yes we’re sinking together, at the center of the world.

And I think we’re two jewels cut from the same crown.
Bombay sapphires with the points rubbed down,
trading each other off in different lands,
passing like bottles through different hands,
till our hearts are polished down
to the color of sand.

Tam Lin