Melanie McCabe

All the Signs Were There, Even Then

It was another midnight of bougainvillea, of air that beat
with swooping bats, with steel drums. I stood
at the southern tip of a rippling arrow of light across
the water; it pointed, but did not include me. 
Fuchsia bent its heavy pink into alleys I could not see,
filled throats in the darkness that were tipped and laughing.

That evening after the cork pop of honeymoon
champagne, a green lizard skittered over my empty spoon,
across the white linen, vanishing before I could exhale. 
My glass gave my mouth somewhere to go. 
Beyond me, windows were open to the wind
and the cobbled streets twitched with nameless dogs.

For hours after, I swirled the blue of my skirt,
my legs relentless and impossible. Above there had been
no moon or stars. Instead, torches trembled in shadow
and not-shadow, nets glittered with shells. 
Marimba made my breath come
differently-- my pulse beat, reckless and strange.

Later, from across the bay, I still felt those hammer strikes
in my bones. The breeze was a static of notes and invitations.
Already I found myself awake, alone. At the balcony railing
I leaned out into all I could see and all that remained hidden. 
Below, a man bent his cigarette to flame
and lifted to me his dangerous eyes.

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Melanie McCabe is the author of three collections of poems: The Night Divers, (Terrapin Books, 2022), What The Neighbors Know (FutureCycle Press, 2014) and History Of The Body (David Robert Books, 2012). Her memoir, His Other Life: Searching For My Father, His First Wife, and Tennessee Williams, won the 2016 University of New Orleans Publishing Prize.