I don't know how I did it,
the walking out, leaving his head
bent forward, like a ripe papaya
ready to break off, roll

onto the blanket under his chin.
His sleeping weighed down the plane,
threatened to drag its belly
across the mangroves.

There was nothing to be done,
but leave through the window,
walk out on the wing, step into
the blue-green

watercolor sky, head down
the mango streak
stretching from the wing's tip
to the island, a black cloud

on the sky's rim. There.
On the beach I wore gold bangles,
danced on water, burnished waves
beneath my feet.



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This piece was first published in INK POT #4- 2004, a literary journal.

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