The courtyard was dominated by a tree
which resembled a gigantic pineapple,
sunk halfway down into the earth.
Rotund in the friendly twilight,
at night it hulked itself into a bull-god,
huge in the surround of a toad serenade.
To prise it apart would have taken a childhood,
its thousand shingles like playing cards
of ancient stone, and at its base
a perpetual colony of black-shelled snails,
their counterclockwise revolution designed to
teach the quickest child slowest patience.
From its crown erupted a bonnet of fronds,
responsive to the sea winds, a rustle
embedding a groan, like the creak of ropes
made taut by ghostly sailors. Around the tree
the bonnet’s castellated shadow extended from
snail-land to childhood’s edge, green and gold
combining to unexpected bluebird blue.
His companion, eight year-old Beatriz, wades
barefoot in the shadow. He dares her
to touch a toe to the largest snail,
kingly horns winking with silver.
Beatriz swims laughing through the air,
reaches back a hand to draw him in.
And in the moment he reaches her
she opens startled eyes, opens startled mouth,
and begins to drown.