III
On Halloween, we drop anchor at Altar do Chão
on the Rio Tapajós, a clear-water river
so wide we cannot see the distant shore.
A white scimitar beach sweeps around a peninsula
where tiny frogs hop near the tideline,
sandstone boulders lie ribboned with lavender,
rubber trees ooze latex at recent scores,
and we build a whumping fire for a barbecue
of fish, sausage, steak, mango chutney.
A Filipino plays guitar, and the crew sing
mournful songs in Tagalog, as the sun drains
and we lie below the spasms of distant stars.
But for stingrays, there’s nothing much to fear,
so, by moonlight, we snorkel round the riverbed
with lanterns, our wonder softly glowing.
Small eels slither, carving sinewy trails.
Other creatures have left hieroglyphics
in the sand, but we cannot read them
any more than the Morse code of the crickets,
the semaphore of the night owl’s ears,
the wind vowels, the fluent grammar of the stars.
Submerging, I drink a mouthful of the river,
which tastes tinny and soft, as if stirred
by water hyacinths, mechanical watches and dolphins.
A stiff brown sail reels into focus:
a large clam lying on edge in the sand.
Lamp off, we see the sharp flint-like moon
twisting its bright knives through the water
and tossing onto the waves small garlands of light.
On shipboard, later, I crumble the bark
of some casca preciosa, fragrant relative of sassafras,
and steep it in a small pot on my bedside table,
as my thoughts begin to glide over the river
that flows in only one direction, like time,
despite its lightly feathered surface, its plumage
of small puckers, its rapids and backwaters.
Quarantined to the present, what misfit hearts we keep.
Time is the least plausible of our fictions,
and yet we dwell in it as in a house of cards.
Soon tea bouquet scents my mouth, hair, the room,
washes up over my face, and through the porthole
I watch night’s crystal blackness settling in,
then lightning begin to prowl the peninsula,
as I sip the sweet violet-scented tonic,
feel an elevator drop sideways in my chest,
and drift from the river into a river of dreams.