Vieques
The snakes were here by the grace of God
but knowing Him, He set them down while He fiddled
around with an Egyptian plague, forgetting where He’d left
them.
The Navy brought mongooses to eat all the snakes
so they could relax and shell the sunrise coast in peace
but a mongoose, he got to eat, as any chicken farmer will
tell you.
Spain sent Church and State astride the horse, but when conquistador
and cleric
dismounted to take in a sunset from Punta Arenas, the sea breeze whispered
soft and sweet to a restless stallion and his starry
eyed mare.
Ticks in the grass, indifferent to bombs, bitter on the
mongoose tongue
bloated equestrians, each and every one, blithe captives of
nothing
but the cold blue Atlantic and the turquoise bath of the
Caribbean Sea.
Bored by the endless cycle of creation and destruction, inspired
perhaps
to beauty or by niggling guilt, God unveiled the egret,
elegant in its simplicity
with a taste for tick and a knack for lazy symbiosis.
The Malecón sways with rhythms we won’t bring back in our
bags, a drink down
the street from the old United Fruit Company dock, a short stroll
to sugar mill ruins
unhurried drivers nodding to afro-son, waiting for horses to make
their way.
