come by our islands
effortless circles of life

lick your pork-greased, buffet fingers
park your passenger ships in little harbours
~hashtag thumbnail paradise~

more ideal than the brochure descriptions await
harmonious, widely blue skies and seas
milk white sands
creamy waves
air melting inside your lungs

engineered for escapism
every illness, easily unimagined
pangs, post-memories

peck, strut, and crow as casual as yardfowls
lay down coffee cups
bear no weapons

what wars have we amongst the kisses of the sun…
that cool blood,
erode choler,
poisons eliminated through deliquescence
and a coconut punch

your ivory nudes deposited
returning as barefoot rummies,
macaroni pie faces
wining aimlessly at calypso beats
all fight washed right out of you

leave with your peace, revived
on the back of a burning ocean
Godzillas marching into the medley of tides
rising against us,
unarmed, devastating

Selected byRaymond Huffman
Image credit:Trina Layne
Trina Layne

Trina Layne is a Christian, wife, sister, aunt, teacher, writer, and musician. Words are her colors. Lyrics and melody have always been beautiful in her life, and she is thankful for this. Trina has won a few writing awards in her sunny island home of Barbados. She has been a finalist in two international writing competitions, including the International Songwriting Competition (ISC) 2016/2017. She is a regular contributor to the global anthology site, PoetrySoup.com.