There are courtyards: frangipani, rose
cactus, ginger; and gardens (front/side/
back) of ice cream trees: sapodilla,
soursop, mango, guava, tamarind

or the decidedly uncitrus
Spanish lime. There are tabernacles
of fronds and palm fans, a fiercely-thorned
true lime, riots of orchids as well

as ferns: elephant-ear, elkhorn, bird’s-
nest, rabbit’s foot, foxtail, on and on,
too many to name in the lush sub-
tropical rot of fevered flowers

and bright sky. Days are sun-drenched yellow-
gold; afternoons blush and pinken; rose-
flushed evenings purple until dusk turns
intense as desire. Sand crabs scurry

after tides and furrow the white, clean-
shaven beaches; sandpipers give chase,
jab-jab-jabbing at stubbles before
running back. Farther on: gasoline-

sheen run-offs beside tide pools, reclaimed
pilings under empty-socketed
barnacles bombarded by the surf.
Shells and leached, milky driftwood wash up,

scratching hieroglyphs among the scraps
of seaweed and feathers, while webbed gulls’
feet scribble their contradictions and
criticisms next to ravishing

waters. Out beyond the shallows where
mangroves root and gather ground, the sea
will be some shade of iced blue, jade or
aquamarine, and like this place, as

transparent as an eye. But it was
no dream. A mouthful of air set mind
in motion—like trade winds—creating
currents that can sail anyone here.

 

 

∞

Brenda Yates is the author of Bodily Knowledge (2015), with poems, reviews, interviews, flash fiction and hybrids published in journals and anthologies based in Australia, Canada, China, England, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal and the United States, including Mississippi Review; Antigonish Review; The Shanghai Literary Review. Notably, she was a Kyoto, Letheon, Princemere, Sundress, Apple In The Dark, Wolverine, and Robinson Jeffers Tor House finalist. Awards include the Patricia Bibby and Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center Poetry Prize.