A storm from Africa visited the island during the night.
In the morning, giant clouds carrying the dust of the Sahara
billow high above the waves, like lemon-colored sails.
In a chalk-white house at the edge of the beach, a woman
sleeps alone on a rumpled bed:
blue sheets, white pillow, amber skin.
Outside her window, palm fronds snap in the wind
but she hears only the gentle breathing of
a man asleep on the other side of the world.
She feels his heartbeat through a thread as thin as a strand of saffron
that he has looped around his wrist. When she releases her end
of the thread, they will both tumble, together, into the clouds.
© 2007 J.M. Keating
Formentera, Spain