Lamu

In the day we ate crab curry on a dhow and sailed
to where a baobab stood four hundred years
a sentry and stoic to what was not quite
a nightmare. That morning I woke to the acute
frequency of the mosquito and clutched my ear.
At night we snaked back through the mangroves
where I saw the locust’s shadow grow monstrous
in our floodlight. In the black water I could not reflect
on what was real. I repeated: There is something
in my ear. There would be no end to this trip, no
mooring on which to dock. I asked the boatman
if there were things of which he was afraid
and he stared just beyond me and said,
“Sometimes, the dark.”