Smithereens Press Chapbooks Atoll by Dylan Brennan | Page 11

Alicia Rovira Arnaud
A sliced blood orange on a slow descent
trickles its rivulets across the flat towel
of the ocean. Diluted streams fade into
the immense. A brown jaggery sugar
fashioned from the boiled sap of palm
fronds is eaten at sundown to sweeten
the melancholy of sleep on a desolate atoll.
The men smoke dried bark and drink
firewater toddy until the waves
come to a halt and limestone sways
instead of the salt horizon. Warm totems
with a soft pulse, on our tiny volcanic peak,
only we can know the true scale of things.
Each morning our cabin dawns closer to the surf.

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