Grand Cayman

Seawater seethes in crusted kettles
cooking away to white crystal cubes,
captives laboring in Caribbean atolls.

Salt cod and biscuit carried in cross-Atlantic clippers,
three-cornered commerce of a collapsing empire.

Corpses shrouded in cheap cotton cloth
lie under shallow cover, cairns of coral.
Crows gather over empty crab shells
and hollow conchs.

Available! High-Voltage Lines, Knocking from Inside