Inhabiting groves of grapefruits,
lime, mango, lemon,
bougainvillea, coconut.
Mangrove-robed and stealthily posing
Les Bourgeois de Calais.
Calliope is turned in gravel dustbound
parking lot rising roadside stand for sea shells
or hushpuppies,
quietly sipping sweet tea and swatting horse flies.
She sits in the screened lanai
wondering if the canal’s black waters host
obligatory reptiles. Skinks
and geckos fall from the hoisted, opening umbrella,
a shadow scent of mildew and jasmine,
burrowing owls eye her curiously.
Or that never passed.
Where moments visiting a
forgotten uncle, himself siblings unremembered
gnaws away at clown-colored shaved ice,
laughing still in a pink-sheared photo,
fifty years before.
In the quiet space you’ve unfurled scratched
grainy, clicking, silent
but for the soundtrack of Exodus,
popping and clicking, repeating,
reflected in a carnival-glass bowl of shelled pecans.