Jamaican Idol

Walking backward from the sea,
scales shedding, you seek the cave. 

This is why the French door admits
only ocean. You stare into the louver

and forget how to get out. Lull
is the word, or loll. The sea returns,

completing your pulse, the waves live,
each breath of yours worship.

From So Much Things To Say: 100 Calabash Poets, edited by Colin Channer and Kwame Dawes. Copyright © 2010 by Terese Svoboda. Used with permission of Calabash International Literary Trust and the author.