- for Susan B.


In Jamaica we lied about our lives,
told the men we met that we worked

at a small college—somewhere mid-western.
We expected it might dissuade them

for a minute from their enthusiastic declarations
of love, their offer to gift us drugs

to pack across the border. Perhaps,
underneath our books, we craved the criminal,

the indelible thrum: to exist as international
smugglers—sweet agents of deceit.

We would escape to five-star hideouts,
tap code words that moved kilos

along one unspoken here, to there.
What could go wrong?

Your face is full of innocence, they said
as if we were one woman instead of too

close friends. Two windows marked open
and closed. Dear other self, dear miscreant,

dear Susan—yes, you—our
coordinates well-matched—brilliantine

and sparkling in green boots, green
pockets, green scarves spinning us beyond

the singular—where friends equal more
than the extraordinary. Don’t say

the exact point on the map, say we lived
in a world where longing still

tangled with something tangible—
the trilled whistle and burn of release.