PUERTO VALLARTA
BY JANÉE J. BAUGHER

In a basin of fawn sand, a beached pelican,
wings folded as two vast fans, her beak
vacant: opening and closing.
I pray death finds her by morning.

. . .

Black pinhead eyes ornament the stairwell,
I count the floors by geckos.
Unable to measure our intent, they scuttle away.

. . .

Seen from my tenth-story balcony
in the pistachio-blue sea, two manta rays --
their fins as sinuous as wings in air.

. . .

A crab ambles sideways under foot,
adobe bodice against adobe sand,
subtle grains flying up.

. . .

I prod a coconut in the tree: twenty-pound,
green round. Machete-scalped,
I carry it away, drain two pints of clear liquid
and eat the fruit, white as linen.

. . .

By morning, past papayas trees
and lilies-of-the-valley, no sign
of the pelican corpse, only the excavated grave,
the empty impression.