Reading Nadezhda Mandelstam in Virgin Islands National Park
Every trinket and provision and provocation arrives
By ships riding over sunken ships few remember.
The sea turtles surface for air only when it is safe.
Time is boats rocking their length against waves.
A wild donkey appreciates petting between old ears
That evolved to be long and upright to better hear
What is imminent. Garish yachts in the turquoise bay
Are also anchored to the animal kingdom but badly.
Hummingbirds glide then hover at the century flower
That blooms only once before it dies. And the desire
Of unseen tree frogs clatters across the bay indifferent
To bow lights lurching closer through the night.
Open air shops sell canvases stained by kitschy pastels.
Icons of donkeys stare from above the bar at lush hotels.
Their likenesses outnumber the herd whose ancestors
Were liberated when slavery ended. Here small vespers
Forever happen amid vistas held by trembling palms.
Remember pigmy goats steeply skitter when alarmed.
Ancestors of the few native residents carved deities
Into basalt below the waterfall to watch in silent fealty.
No one remembers their motive, but there are doubts
It was to beckon sunburned tourists with illusory debates
About the land’s lucre. Ruinous sugarcane plantations
Crumble in their unprofitable finale. Among vacations
Too busy counting many kinds of coconut cocktails,
Nadezhda moves haltingly through memory’s octaves.
From town to small town, writing without the danger
Of putting any words to paper. She vanishes hours
Before the secret police arrive in abandoned rooms
To arrest her. Remember pygmy goats are memories
Of their ancestors left by pirates as food for when
They erratically return. Eventually they did not return.