She finished her spiced-rum gimlet,
             placed her toenail clippings

             in the glass with the ice cubes
             dissolving.

             Such was her resolve
             to drink no more
             that night,

and the hi-fi played
             calypso,
             island songs so old
             that the brown girls

             locked inside them
             were skulls and misplaced photographs.

She dreaded going to bed,

yet she dreaded standing there
             alone,

             near the open window
             where the entire physical world

             might disappear
             in a bullfrog’s throat
             or worse,

             might not.

– Glen Armstrong