The palm trees swayed quietly in the dehumidified air.
A woman reclined underneath one,
Hand trembling as she touched a smooth frond, milky
Against sharp green.

   And so the path led on
Into closed silence, the whir
Of a film projector caught in a cycle, circling
Back to the finale, the solemn prose

   Rocking against the walls,
The eggs and oyster shells,
Muddy and wasteful in their silent violation,
Were pried open and reaped.

  They were all hunters in the jungle,
Stalking the iridescent tiger that had carved flesh with its pearly teeth.
The sugar baron with a cigar grimaced in approval.

Colonist Africa, wrathful and wild.
Was subsumed and ravaged, full of husks and hallowed ground.
And the cicada shells, crushed under the brutish foot,
Were seventeen years too late.

The spring made its way through the stubborn tract of the year, plush and supreme.
While submachine guns were ordered, viewed and caressed,
And the Virgin’s apparition blessed the plywood crate.

   The snake coiled like smoke in the air,
Devilish, cunning.
Guardian of Poseidon’s orb.

This valuable, this utter treasure
Sinking deep into the abysmal Pacific.

The cannons had raised their hollow eyes to the sea, lined with
Bright holocene lamps.
And the crustaceans played with their cards
In an underwater casino.

   The ocean, the rushing waves that clawed
At my toes while I laid, prone and vulnerable, borne on the fine surface swell.
Floating on, skin burnt and lips crisped
I was nothing, a shell

Drifting through that watery womb
Where I planned my last escape
The chest rose and fell
With the steady tide
At an unbearably steady rate.

The Horn was at the hip, painted upon the femur
And the blood was gone, stripped clean of all flesh, all tendons and nerves.
Only bone remained, pro patria mori, the empty body, the earth was all unknown.
The coffin was weighed down, cast down, with pebbles and watery stones,

Spitting out the faces of friends, comrades in arms, lovers, perhaps
They were gloriously, horribly  free
With a delight rare and bright as the burst cataract.
And the pain of heartbreaking ecstasy.