Brandon McQuade – Jamaica

Wyoming poet Brandon McQuade’s “Jamaica” is a narrative of searching for God in the tropics and coming face to face with disillusionment. It also carries the juxtaposition between the vast wilderness of spirituality, represented by the sea, which the narrator dipped his toes into with trepidation, and the safe normalcy and man-made sterility of the pool. “Jamaica” is from Brandon’s new collection of poems, “Bodies”. He told The Dewdrop, “This poem is from my most recent book, ‘Bodies’. The poems in ‘Bodies’ explore the plurality of love and loss, tenderness and violence. Drawing from connections between people and animals, celestial bodies and bodies of water.”

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Jamaica

There’s something about swimming at a beach
in water deep and dark enough
that I lose sight of what’s beneath
that sets my teeth on edge.
After the shuttle driver sold us a bag of weed
somewhere between the resort and the airport,
I couldn’t stop seeing the cannabis green leaves
on the tops of the palm trees.
We smoked and smoked and smoked
until the scent of the green plant
clung to our fingertips like sex.
Sitting on the balcony in the predawn
darkness, smoking weed and hash,
the glare of the streetlamps fading
like smoke rings, I pretended to believe
in God. Not because I feared death,
even though I do. Not for any other reason
than to have someone to speak to in my head.
I told myself that my body was an ocean,
treading water under my sun-bleached skin,
and I prayed to my newfound God
that I might find the strength
to brave the inlet’s deep blue.
Morning came, and I forgot all about
my Jamaican God. I dipped my toes
into the ocean, then returned to the pool.