Now, landed. Home, after Havana. Our skin is still hot to touch, bronze and burning. On our last night there, we were too tired to make love. We kissed under the Varadero half-moon, standing in the sea. It was enough.

Now, from land, I dream of it, the colour of those clouds. How the fish found the bread between your fingers. My hands, underwater. Your pale flesh, like manna.

—From the poet’s latest book, Pretty Time Machine: ekphrastic prose poems (Mixed up Media, February 2020); appears here with her permission.

Publisher’s Note:

The original oil-on-canvas painting The Mermaid (1910), by Howard Pyle (1853–1911), is held by Delaware Art Museum. The reproduction above was downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

Bio: Lorette C. Luzajic