Photo Diary: The Caribbean
“I dream that I report back. My soul made light, my face made whole again. I dream the colors of the Caribbean landscape meet my eyes and in them I am reflected back in their grace. I dream of their pardon — my absolution. Instead I lie awake, weight peeling away at my ankles. Drifting deep into waters more clear than I have ever seen before.
Even without the light.”
“If you must know anything, know that you were born because no one else was coming. The ship rocked as you swelled inside me: love’s echo hardening into a boy. Sometimes I feel like an ampersand. I wake up waiting for the crush. Maybe the body is the only question an answer can’t extinguish. How many kisses have we crushed to our lips in prayer—only to pick up the pieces? If you must know, the best way to understand a man is with your teeth. Once, I swallowed the rain through a whole green thunderstorm. Hours lying on my back, my girlhood open. The field everywhere beneath me. How sweet. That rain. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet. Water whittled down to intention. Intention into nourishment. Everyone can forget us—as long as you remember.
Summer in the mind.
God opens his other eye:
two moons in the lake.”