Brava, fogo, corpo, lua

                 after Mina Loy

I lived in my head.
Two years, the moon coming and going
over Brava and the volcano.
Another island in our pathetic
archipelago.

Every night I watched it rise over the island
whose name means brash, or angry, or foolhardy.
A rocky place we visited once, in a cold
and fog-draped March.

I lived in my head, my body could have grown wings
or shed itself in a dry husk, for all
I noticed.

I lived in my lantern.
Insects beat their flimsy wings around it.
My head
emitted a strange light.

Regret is intoxicating.
But once you’ve lost something, it’s all
absurd. Marriage, children, funana.
The boat’s frenetic two-step, barrel’s
empty rib.

I lived in my lantern. Outside, a goat licked
the island’s moon-pocked cheek,
and young girls moved in and out of view
on the dirt road, carrying bundles of tinder on their heads.