Somewhere on Duval, a drag queen named Sushi
descends from a rooftop in a giant cherry red
high-heeled shoe and the day flakes away like
grouper. The city below erupts. Moments apart
cheers waft through the fronds of a palm that we
can nearly touch from our hotel balcony. You
photograph me, all bedroom eyes, slugging
decent champagne from a tumbler as the island’s
house bands strike up their out of sync Auld Lang
Synes. When did we stop locking ourselves away?
Inspecting each other, turning over and over
like jewels under the loupe of morning? Once,
you said that good palms cost a grand a foot. Or
a hundred. Because I cannot remember, I want to ask
you this, to let you again tell me something very true,
like the waitress at the marina restaurant who told us
to steer clear of the chowder, it’s canned. As we sat,
ate the last meal of the year, the boatful of drunks
roped to the dock cast again and again a string of
beads on a fishing line, and as each man bent
to snatch it, he startled, as the necklace
leapt, then snaked away.