sheila black

small green island

We went to the abandoned mansions
and studied what was left in them – a strand
of fake pearls in a puddle of stained
water, a few plastic milk jugs, condoms
which we steered away from, needles
the same, dolls – part of doll bodies,
the plastic often cracked – some strange
bloodless version of what harm might
come. We felt safe because we knew
how to climb trees, how to place ourselves
in the crown—a world of green heights.
And the smell of rain. We knew how to
dip our fingers in hibiscus, bougainvillea.
We knew the sadness of the colonists
in the gardens left to rot, in the oddities
placed on the beach, parts of ships
denuded by salt and storm until they
resembled broken lives. We knew to
put our ears to shells. We knew what
they gave back was not actually ocean
but the noise of our own blood.

__________

About the author

Sheila Black’s most recent collection is Radium Dream from Salmon Poetry Ireland. Poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, The Nation, The New York Times, and elsewhere. She is a co-editor of Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability and a co-founder of Zoeglossia, a non-profit that seeks to build community for poets with disabilities.