This is an example of the Terza Rima, a form that originated in Italy. It consists of an indeterminate number of tercets, rhyming aba, where the b line of any verse sets the rhyme for the first and last lines of the next tercet. The form may end with a couplet or, more usually as here, with a single line. This line or couplet must rhyme with the preceeding tercet's second line.

The poem takes an idyllic scene and turns it into a horror story in the final line.

Back in 1960 when I visited Grenada, courtesy of the Royal Navy Grand Anse Beach consisted of a mile of silver sand that swept round a bay in a gentle curve, bordered on one side by the clearest sea you ever saw and shoreside, by a dense growth of coconut palms. There was a rickety, wooden pier at the end of which perched a corrugated-iron-roofed shack that served as the only bar on the beach. I don't want to go back. I want to remember it as it was before it became lined, wall to wall, with four and five star hotels!

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