This is as good as it gets:
				Here, on the bay at Grand Case
				on a stone-paved balcony 

				over jadeblue water
				lapping noiselessly
				at a strip of sand, 

staining this bit of the earth. 
Heavy white linen cloth,
dry white wine in tall-stemmed glasses,

Jonathan’s downy head in my lap.
Across the table, my husband
and his mother.  When my son

wakes, he dangles small bare toes
fine morsels, over the Atlantic
while we eat lobster bisque,

Caesar salad, conch.
Some things have changed
since last year –

There’s a new owner –
but the same broad clear view

	of Saba, where this morning
	we climbed hundreds of steps
	of volcanic rock through lush greens,

	tender-climbing bougainvillea
	and blue-bird hibiscus, red-centered
	to reach Fort Bay from windwardside.

	The steps provide perilous footing,
	but we followed them to the top.
	Squinting across the ocean,

	we hunted for but did not find
	the spot where we now sit,
	eating Chez Daisy in the Windward Islands,

where there is time for everything,
and everything seems in its place:
Sun winking on glass and water,

the pressing weight of the white cloth,
discreet brush of the passaat wind,
and water, slapping at the shore,

invisible as time’s feast,
so even those who look
don’t see what’s borne away.


			“Eating, Chez Daisy” won a prize from the Poetry Society of Virginia