On the south side of the bluff at sundown
we hike to Cayman's shrug-shoulder salute
to Jamaica--a flat-faced boulder
turned festive with flip-flops and sneakers
shunted in by the tide.
We can't avoid accidents--
the way our rubber soles explode
the zebra-snails peppering
fossilized brain coral, star coral,
salt-slicks cratered in this ironshore.
Frigate birds spiral. A sky inking fast
shoos us, stumbling, to bikes
whose baskets brim with orchids
and bromeliads foraged from the mouth of a cave--
cool at noon--
where bats sheared from ceiling to wall,
grazing our ears, nearly,
as though we might scare.