Drinking and surfing all day, our skin
salty and sunned, my chest rubbed raw
from the surf board and sand – Santa Catalina.
Midnight, leaving the cabana bar of our camp,
walking by the glow of our headlamps
toward hammocks we hung carelessly
under coconut trees. We couldn't afford a room.
We’d hung yours above mine, stashing gear, a decoy,
lest anyone know we were tangled underneath.
The owner of the camp told us to move, warned
prophetically of falling coconuts - I was headstrong.
Laughing over patacones and atún, we tried to forget
that fight on the beach – opening our meager toolbox
again, patching and plugging sober conflict
with dark, aged rum and cheap, stale pot.
We left the bar happier than we arrived.
Perhaps we'll make love, I thought.
Halfway back to camp, you grabbed me, pulled me from mid-step –
I hadn't seen them, that exodus, but your attention to life
saved a fragile shell from my bare, drunken foot – before us hundreds
of tiny turtles, drafted and deployed from egg to sea.
They were crawling toward the lights of huts on the beach,
confused and naive, inching en masse away from the moon.
Their bright siren left them wanting, piled-up, clawing against
the foundation of the hut - insane survival instincts not adapted
to a world changed - to a coastline of electricity.
Giddy and united in purpose, we shed our shirts, stuffing
them with turtles, then sprinted toward the foamy surf.
Whizzing past each other we grinned wildly, shouting
how many we carried, how many more were left behind.
Wave after wave, swirling saline embraced them like a hug,
softly whispering – hold on tightly, little ones … here we go.
Finally, naked chests heaving seaward, we imagined them making it –
yet – our silence makes me wonder if it ever happened at all.
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