sunset from the cliffs
the bride wore black
dolphins cut the waves
fins first
bird of paradise
lobster claw
hibiscus all tongues
and beaks leaned
in close like gossips
or a Greek chorus
singing Marley’s
Could You Be Loved
how did her store burn
down after the police
stopped him from
bulldozing the place
the dark dog Cocoa
circled lay at the groom’s
feet the hired
minister left little
man Zacchaeus to his tree
then the red balloon sun
slipped with a flash
of green into the sea
when it drops you gonna feel it
we traded
Internet for mosquito
net cocooned
for sleep
under a halo
of white mesh
the sea beating
the coral cliffs
of Negril a lullaby
of dominoes geckos
the kingpins in the road
hawking anythingyouwant
the minstrel Fire improvising
Toots Hibbert’s Pressure Drop
a daughter hopeful that her father
in a Sav-la-Mar hospital would kick
lung cancer with an herbal medicine
something six chemo treatments
in Georgia couldn’t do
first published in Poetic Voices Without Borders 2 (Gival Press: Arlington, VA)
Karren LaLonde Alenier is author of seven collections of poetry, including Looking for Divine Transportation (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press, 1999), winner of the 2002 Towson University Prize for Literature, and The Anima of Paul Bowles (MadHat Press, 2016), selected as a 2016 top staff pick by the Grolier Book Shop in Boston. Her poetry and fiction have been published in the Mississippi Review, Jewish Currents, and Poet Lore. Her opera Gertrude Stein Invents a Jump Early On, with composer William Banfield, premiered by Encompass New Opera Theatre under the direction of Nancy Rhodes in New York City June 2005. For Scene4 Magazine, she writes a monthly column about Gertrude Stein and the arts called “The Steiny Road to Operadom.” To read more by this author: Five poems, Volume 3:4, Fall 2002; Audio Issue, Volume 9:4, Fall 2008