In The Botanical Gardens, Kandy Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Come and snap the scorpion! Quick, Madame!
Rupee and picture do an instant trade
The tourist scorpion always on parade
Park keeper’s park to supplement his pay.

Lovers hold hands and kiss
In this pleasure gardens of queens
The Mahaweli river skirts around.

Hungover monkeys, comatose with heat
Slump over branches, toes and tails down dangling
Their leader topples a bin, prises the lid ajar
Then disappears inside this leavings-larder
For take-aways to feed his screeching tribe.

Fruit bats drip from the fig trees looking furtive.
Deep in the shade of bushes I almost touch
A spider, like a breast-brooch made by Cartier
Deadly as napalm, shining in its web