I
She’s heavy now into her pregnancy
when she goes with her husband
to Puerto Rico, to Old San Juan.
They take an apartment in a Spanish
Colonial house that has a flagstone
terrace and a walled tropical garden.
Under a veranda’s arch, she sits
and passes her mornings; she reads
or just gazes out into their garden.
As a child she’d been diminutive
with curly blond hair and small bones
that gave her a delicate look though
in fact, she’d been a fierce child.
She thought of herself as commander
of her soul, and when she thinks of that,
she sees herself as a ship, a wooden ship,
a square-rigged sailing ship, a frigate,
sailing fast on deep blue seas.
II
Her self-images are often masculine,
but in her current state of pregnancy,
she does not feel very in-tune
with that masculine self-image,
and whenever that boy in her belly
flips over and marches around,
she acutely feels her current lack
of self-determination. The truth is,
she feels as if she travels at high velocity,
like a falling star as it hurls through space
with absolutely no control.
Entering her third trimester,
she should not be feeling nauseous,
but she is. It’s terror, she thinks,
terror of feeling rudderless.
III
She sees herself as both ship and captain.
Her long suntanned arms float before her
like disembodied souls against a navy-blue
cotton sundress. In the garden, a grapefruit tree
blooms. How delicate that scent, like a silky
powder puff of memories. A coqui begins to chirp,
loudly. It is as though he is determined
to get her attention. He springs quickly
from a palm frond right onto her chair arm.
He is a blinding, almost soul-searching
shade of green. His frog eyes are as orange
as a setting sun. The dragonflies in her heart
come to rest as she looks at a blue cloudless sky.
IV
Coquis are totems. She knows this much
from her slender thread of Native American
heritage. Coquis are so tiny, but have a loud,
penetrating song of self. She knows this totem.
She knows a Coqui personifies a Caribbean god here,
a god that Christopher Columbus had written about.
She will name her baby Christopher, Bearer of Light,
Patron Saint of Travel, and she will regain herself,
set her sails, command her ship, and pray for wind.
