The week after I left the island,
it was Shark Week on Discovery.

Sure, I’d chosen to forget; in salty
surf, murky waters, there were apex

predators, the same way sex
is impossible, scalloped-edged, sad. Obscured

from view, it was a dolphin’s dorsal
that crested the waves. In my pink cowgirl

pajamas, face illuminated by the flicker
of a tiger shark snatching an albatross [...]