Soufrière, St. Lucia, December 2005 (2nd draft)

Under déz Pitons, the cinders sing with charcoal springs,
rocks ruddied with sulfur cascading down Diamond Falls –
the bearded men with carved baubles and beads,
You on vacation mahn, no pressure, no problem –
mahogany straddles the stilted houses in the hills,
River Doree cool and deadly as a lady
snakes through narrow streets, pastel faded façades,
past the Church of the Assumption and central square,
childhood home of Napoleon’s Empress Josephine de Beauharnais.
The ever-windward waves,
catamarans anchor tourists just-offshore as the wake exerts its will
on rows of canoes and buoys, beckons like beacons to divers,
muscled men blowing conches over cruise ship horns,
parade their tuna-colored shells,
and soté boys from the jump-up in Gros Islet dive from docks,
dreadlocks as golden as the crests of hummingbirds,
mister, madam, coin, coin! plead tourists
to throw cent, five cent, ten cent, dollar
into the deep water, shoving each other,
nosediving after the coins,
bodies dancing upside-down, the feet flit
like minnows, racing for the specie,
specks of silver sinking under the sea,
flipping end-over-end like the island’s history –
which side you on? no pressure, no problem,
then surface and shout for more, raison d'état,
their voices a soca chantey, a chorus of gulls.