April 17

Ragged Island

First, you must cross many waters.

If by plane, you will land
on an airstrip whose tar
erodes into sand as it leaves.
No one will meet you.
There will be a cabana, cheerful red
against white, where a fridge and two toilets
may greet you.
There is bush round the airstrip. If you’re lucky,
the trees there will feed you.

If by sea, you will find
(if your boat is too large)
the channel still silted from a long-ago storm,
and you’ll wait for the launch
to be launched from the dock,
and you’ll offload your cargo upon her.

There are cars, but no roads.
Concrete pavement is brittle
its edges are sharp enough to slash through a tyre.

There is, though:

a town upon the hills that crown the island
salt pans neat as math patterns at their foot
a colony of pigs and chicken lands
a cemetery walled around a sandy bottom
a pink-sand-spotted bay behind a lover’s leap
a breeding ground for conch and whelks and starfish
a shoal of rocks concealing sand dollars
and sea eggs
a hilly arid land surprised by flowers
and sea and sky and sea and sky and sky