Watching Waikiki Unfold

Inside the open rollup gate of an airbrush salon,
sightseers bought T-shirts sprayed with brilliant
seascapes of Waikiki and pastels of Diamond Head.

When shuttered gates made tourists scamper,
my mother and I watched an evening's drama
across from our seventh floor condo balcony.

Long after the airbrush painter locked up
came girls in mini skirts and diamond-studded
belly buttons below sequin-sparkling tank tops.

And cars. Cars of all kinds and makes and colors,
convertibles with fashionable leather seats,
drivers stopping to appraise the wahine.

The women smoked Japanese cigarettes,
stood in front of secured gates of the shops,
leaned out to a nonstop parade of clients.

Cash negotiations successfully executed,
forbidden rendezvous took moonlit sojourns
along Ala Wai Canal to secluded parking lots.

Different girls stepped into the curbside stations,
and other drivers in convertibles took up the queue.
Later they returned, tops askew, lipstick smeared.

Mother and I sat fascinated until the city's night glow
dimmed with coming of the ocean-dappled dawn,
that line of orange and yellow at the edge of the sky.

After we drifted off to bed, before Kona winds
began to warm the day, the airbrush painter
swept up the previous night's cigarette butts.