Les Îles Du Salut, French Guiana
I watch you climb the coconut tree with such speed and precision, reaching
far and high for the perfect fruit.
You return to me, proud, and bare-chested
the thump of your two bare feet as they land and kick up dirt.
You wanted to taste the Salvation Islands.
I have set out aurora bouillon and market chicken splayed on sugar cane
spit-fired, warm and tender. We eat with our hands
silently, overlooking Devil
and Resurrection.
We have understood that here we have no control over time or light.
We sleep when the sun sets, balancing ourselves in our hammocks
without netting, offering our flesh to the fat, greedy mosquitoes.
It took us a week to learn that we had been sleeping in it the wrong way.
But even the right way doesn’t help as we turn away from the howl
of yellow-pawed monkeys screeching
into the night. Ghost calls in this former penal colony.
And everywhere, ants thick as thieves carry
sturdy leaves and dirt, marching on, daring us to step in their path.
These last two nights are the most terrified I’ve ever been.
We have learned to drink from the twisted limbs of the liana
and cut deep into a palm to excavate the pale fibrous heart.
We ran through a rainstorm, tripping over tree roots
thick and winding, or were they elapids and vipers?
This morning, something feverish caused me to stir
just in time to blink open to a yellow-leg centipede
slither toward my face, daring me
to stop it. Instead I stare, paused by its beauty
terrified of its venom. You nudge me, gently
on the ankle, from your own hammock and point
to the cascades we hadn’t seen when we arrived late
under a moonless sky. Our last one before we go our separate ways.
My tongue remembers
the heat of last supper’s hot peppers,
tiny marbles of dazzle and danger
that I’d swallow again and again
whole like the full force of the falls.
These last two weeks are the most alive I’ve ever felt.