Photo by Catherine Brousse

For Ivan, Eaten by the Tropics      Ina Cumpiano      In the moonlight, all things seem ordinary.      Even the backyard ylang-ylang loses its yellow      and pales by comparison but is not so pale,      the sweet, pee-smell of its blossoms is overcome      by night blooming jasmine, each white star,      and the once-green rustle of its leaves darkens      behind the coquí's froggy insistence. Long after      the blood had thinned, we could still hear      the warfarin pop of the mouse, delicate      in the amapola hedge, and the warm air ripened;      the roots of the benjamin laurel writhed, broke      through the cement sidewalk where you once      wrote our names with a stick. Around us, the heavy      narcotic scent of inchoate hope. We couldn't parse,      let alone spell out loud the intricacies of desire.      We were, what? fourteen? --and still breathing.

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