1996 A shaft of blue splintered into a thousand nuances, shed them into the sea beneath our tiki hut— wedged on stilts into hunger clouds of shimmery fish, oysters lipping black pearls. We married there, on the shore between the neon chakra of sky & water, a handful of drowsy natives shaking New Year’s Eve from the folds of their pareos. Dancing, a tide etched in sand. Later, petal-strung in whites already sighing into sepia, from our balcony we sought those old stars from home. Palm trees swaying festively in dark silhouette across the unadorned horizon of the Pacific. Love, a sugared rim we shared in sips, cowry shells strung and whispering at our throats, every edge garnished in hibiscus, sunburn, pineapple. In the shallows, the moray eel we’d spotted earlier— prehistoric face bobbling from his pulpit of stone. Before the ceremony, we’d tossed in our pockets of foreign coins— wishes aimed at his blind scowl. Later, moonlight uprooted the slippery ribbon of his tail, while the current floated him, floorboard by floorboard, across you & me; a benediction in a sleeve of sea water, the round polyp mouths of the reef opening in the dark like a choir.
Leave a Reply