The Sunday Poem: May Storm, La Parguera

“It never rains in sunny La Parguera.“

She’s counted, what,
Fifty-nine leaks in our weekend
Cabin’s ceiling. Crabs
The size of hands skitter
Chattering across the walls.

This is our honeymoon, you know…
Our love of books wed us,
and now it’s official.
But the ones we brought
To read by sunlight have grown
Thicker and more obscure.
An inch of standing water and the drum
Of rain and rain and rain keeping us
Indoors. So many drops,
The patterns in the bay
Aren’t even circles.

I suppose it always rains on a honeymoon,
Making matters weightier,
Making bays all across the world
Seem more complex.
At least indoors, the water flows
easily across the floors, and patterns
Are less perplexing. We can stop,
Feel the cabin carried off by crabs,
Let water lap our toes,
And wonder what we have done,
And what makes weather change.

Yeah, this happened. We were staying at a relative’s beach house. There were literally crabs climbing the walls. The mosquito netting sagged over the bed, and the blankets were completely sodden. There really was an inch of standing water. We lasted a day, and had to call for rescue.