My island

The silence is broken by the silence itself
something else is listening
except at night, when crabs
in their millions scriggle on the shore.

I take the green pill first and spend a day
lost inside an engine made of glue.
In the water there’s a woman’s face,
a giantess who stretches deep across the bay.

When the rain is warm I wash;
when cold, I hide,
imagining the buckets
I do not have, filling to the brim.

The knife I’d hidden when I took
the drugs, I cannot trace.
The beach smells of sisal,
damp earth, salt, and something else.

Lying down, my eyes next to the sand,
I watch the insects’ traffic.
By day I try to catch the crabs
I hear at night, but never do.

The boat fizzes to the dock. I step aboard.
On the other side of the trees,
nothing is happening.
Nothing I can see, anyway.