Polar

The Russian poet said in Paris

she felt like an iceless polar bear.

One drifts on a flow, piece of the Artic

jigsaw puzzle, like a beach surfer rides

a board. A fan coral in Anguilla is

bleached snow white as the Gulf streams

tepid water. A school of rabbitfish are

brushstrokes in a sky, as they run to Canada.

Hurricane Humberto

The fallen palmetto tree bars the road,

nature blocks man’s journey. The Make

Way sign down. The Ber News photos

peaceful without humans on South Shore.

Just nature roaring through, one poinciana

branch, a large lizard knocked out of its

domain without anything to hold onto.

The video I watch shows casuarinas fidgety

around houses, lively as baby fingers above

a pram as the wind bawls. On the lawn at

Inwood, a fallen paw paw fruit and trunk,

bat and ball left out in the rain. A friend

tells me the earth is trying to get rid of us.

Here, an uprooted mangrove tree is

the storm’s wishbone, keen to eliminate

occupants. One roof wrapped in plastic,

like an islander might wind around

the head in a squall, turquoise as a surgical

cap after chemotherapy. In the bright

sunshine and quiet, after Hurricane Humberto

has gone back out to sea, left the island

with palms bent over, converts to a

ruthless doctrine, the white washed

roofs line up into paper soldier hats.