On the Island of Recollection

Teach a woman to fish, you have fed her for a lifetime. ~ Proverb

The light that day was watery.

The light that day, I remember,

was watery. Alison drove the launch

to the reef where we snorkeled.

I’d grown through the week into

solitude, stilled as a wading bird.

You learn to fish for kindness among

gentler creatures, agree to praise a god

on Sundays when offered a seat in the pew.

Holy places all about, there are, there are.

My heart too tired to protest. Gifts. This girl loved

my boyfriend, the boyfriend she. A palm tree

rattled its fronds and propped my back until

the little plane returned for my knapsack and me.

Yes, in a Caribbean archipelago I tipped and

emptied out like rainwater from a rubber boot.

You see, that day of watery light, I was young

enough to swim to where the nurse shark napped

without a ripple of fear or the urge to look up

at the shadow of the hull anchored above.