Little Cayman Island
The plane descended, touched down:
heat, humidity, and the promise of peace
on the ten-mile strip of sand, ponds and palms.
I walked into a familiar room.
Later, I cycled on the circular road,
where crabs crawl across and iguanas have the right of way.
I strolled on the narrow breeze-cooled beach,
tuned my ears to the ripples brushing the shore.
Fragmented conch shells, white sea urchin tests –
fragile domes—exoskeletons of spiny lobster,
brain coral, purple sea fans, an empty bottle
that floated from Jamaica. Waves planed a spiral shell
to reveal the columella – the axis at its center.
Currents carried a polished brown sea heart seed
and a worn white toothbrush dropped from a boat.
On the warm sand, I gathered hard truths.
I filled a shell with the pain left behind to be cleansed
or washed away by the tide. The rustling of a hermit crab
over dried leaves startled me as I walked back to the room,
inside me the silence into which each storm hushes.
Simona Carini was born and grew up in Italy, where she graduated from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (Milan). She moved to California as an adult and graduated from Mills College (Oakland, CA). Her poetry and memoir have appeared in a number of venues, in print and online, including Star 82 Review, Intima – A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Italian Americana, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Sport Literate. She lives in Northern California, loves to spend time outdoors and works as an academic researcher. https://simonacarini.com
See more of her work in 4.2 and 5.1 and 5.3 and 7.1 and 9.1 and 9.1