The Maynard
Spring 2018

Sixteen Weeks in the Caribbean Apartment

Twin rooms with whirring fans and bed skirts
of yellowed polyester. Portraits of children
in school uniforms stare down from their spackled perch
to watch us toss and sigh. I tape towels
on coffee table corners, glimpse sunsets
squeezing tangerines down the throats of roofs. Each morning
roosters and dogs preside over our returns
to consciousness, me half-dreaming
of how life’s roundness comes to wither—fruit
skin shrivels, hips that birthed babies
crack and are replaced. Beyond our gate: trees
offer sour brown tamarind and a belly-up iguana
rots in the fire of day. We count on the black mutt running
to and fro along his driftwood fence,
on the one cafetería to be open
so we can drain Styrofoam cups of espresso
and have that fight in the plaza. One day we take a turn
and happen on four horses, untethered and grazing.
I grip the baby to me while you saunter
down the path, casual and tanned.