Calypso
By Glen Armstrong
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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.