ENVIRONMENTAL Poem: Caribbean Blue, by Sara Shea

Sailing the West Indies
on a sea smooth as shark skin,
blue as a peacock’s eye,
we drop anchor
in Oppenheimer Cay.

Iguana eyes gleam,
gold as plutonium,
from tangles of sea grape branches.
Lessons of Trinity, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki haunt memory.

A molasses sun drizzles into
ripening nutmeg drupes.
Palm fronds in the wind
are maracas and flamenco skirts.
Angelfish, lionfish, sea fans are
nature’s calypso dancers.

At dusk, we dive off the bow
into a nexus of bioluminescence.
The father of the atom bomb
escaped here, to this safety
of island paradise,
far removed from humankind.

I conjure mushroom clouds,
while we whisper
about mushroom tea
and full moon parties at Bomba’s.

A man-o’-war drifts in trade winds.
Weapons lurk below.
The moon rises above
plumes of smokey evening clouds
that detonate and dissipate,
like octopus ink.