His love, he says, is red, green and gold. Golden, like my body in the glow of the single bulbed room, (or silver depending on the moon.) Red, as the rivers Nile that pulse and swell beneath our skin, faster faster, or slowly slowly, but always constant. Green, like cannabis; like my eyes, like his thumbs.

He says that all women are Delilah’s. He weaves wicker chairs and refuses their use. He says a lot of things, I tell him. He nods once, twice. Looks away, relights his blunt. Peeks at me through his curtain of locks, smiles. If I am Delilah, he is Sampson. If I am his downfall, he lets me be so willingly.

He is a lion of Judah. I mewl like a kitten at his feet when the time is right.

“Cause if you don’t come I’ve got to go lookin’, for happiness, happiness.” Is that, so? I say. Mr. Marley says so, he says. I smile, this is our game. He grabs the vinyl record with one hand, and a Guinness with the other. Pops the cap with his pearly whites, a feat I’ve never tried to master and drinks. His Adam’s apple has a life all its own. The music peters in, the percussion like a heartbeat. His, or mine. Bob Marley’s, or the Wailers’ combined. The song is beautiful, and sad in its simplicity. It is my favourite, I say. His is Waiting in Vain, he says. We each know this, but play into the ritual.

His head starts to bend and his knees begin to buckle. Shuffles his feet, left left, and right, left again. Opens his hands to me, and I come like a child bid. He plays at strumming the guitar chords on my ribcage. He is a musician of a man. I am at home in the beauty of his skin. In the peaty loam smell, that follows him wherever he goes. He laughs, and I can feel the reverberation in my bones, deep between my hipbones, nestling up high beneath my breastbone. His hair rains down his back, swings with his every move. Collides with me, and I tug back. His locks, are honey brown and go on for miles. They are the serpents in our Garden of Eden, I say. Could never, he says. The serpent was a woman.

I smile. That’s new, I say. This is not, he says. He grabs my hand and rests the palm flat against his heart. Its beat is no longer that of the song. It’s outstripped it, by far. It’s faster, more urgent. Between the honey of his hair and the sugar of his skin, I find myself diabetic. He runs his farmer’s hands down the column of my neck. Cultivates feelings that are impossible to explain. You must be an obeah man, I say. He laughs a smoker’s laugh. What makes you say that? He says. He is a magician of a man. Because I don’t quite understand your magic, I say. Another laugh. It’s not magic, it’s marijuana, he says. But oh, I say. Can’t you see I’m under your spell?

Always, always. Under his spell. He goes out, every evening, at dusk. Red sky at night. He jars his little boat, from its bed of sand and pushes it into the inky blue. Gets in, sea legs are better than none. He goes out, alone. To set his nets, and wait. While I wait, for his return. And return, he does. Never the same, but still under his spell. Every night, his dingy capsizes and his body cuts through the stillness of the water like a knife. His hair whips around his body, like tentacles, turning against him. Weighing him down. He is calm, doesn’t thrash around, knows better than to. He gets caught in his very own net, nothing at all like the fish he’d had his hopes set on. But, everything like them. Because return, he does. Silver and saline, like a mackerel’s back. Caught in his own net. But return to me, he does. Every night, always.

His love, he says, is red, green and gold.