Maureen Daniels

The picnic tables inside
the restaurant were painted

peacock-blue and the back doors
opened onto the empty beach.

On the walls, needlepoint
portraits hung in bamboo frames.

The menu was a stained sheet
of thin paper and the waitress

did not speak our language.
My husband sat across from me

facing his bowl of blood sausage.
We had come to the wrong island,

rode the wrong boat
from Guadeloupe. He did not look

at me with love or longing.
He did not lean toward me or take

my hand across the withering
candlelight. What a mistake

I had made! My little salad
sat like a wilted forest

in front of me, my appetite
roaring on some other shore.

What he said to me then,
I will always remember.

We walked back to our locked
room without touching.