As Mourning Doves Persist

Not breeze but strong wind. The scent of coffee in this house not my home but my brother's with expanse of high ceiling and lawn of palms around the perimeter. More sun than one can stare into in this change of time, waking in my bed in a corner of the grandmother Ohana with a rectangle of perfect sky cut just above and to my left.  I am visiting an island where my brother owns a backhoe parked under a tarp. I walk past it to pick lemons. Past nameless leafy and magenta.  The coconuts on the trees are deceptively green. I presume the brown rough and sweet milk are tucked inside these coy treasure chests. Maui  matryoshka .  Flying in at night, I couldn't see anything much but dark and the highway that I guessed was running around the edge of the island, or alongside sugar cane fields, its lit lines under splintered moon. All the large and small warm houses below with their daughters of inevitable aching hearts and boys with tiny drum sets and fistfuls of leg...

1. The couple in front of me in a wooden booth scoop their lunch up between them as they speak a language other than my own. My tiny soup cup is empty. I poor sweetener into my bitter black tea. The man at the table is momentarily left alone by his petite companion and he see-saw leans away from his seat to try to follow her. A passing employee helps him to lift up and out. Two men holding hands to share balance, as if old friends and a cordial politeness arrives in that minute. 2. At work a friend is leaving to take another job. I buy a candle for her as parting gift from the café’s gift shop. I wonder what to take down from the shelf persimmon, moonlit bayberry, or sensuous narcissus.     When I return to slide into my spot, the couple is gone. Replaced with a father and a fidgety boy on all fours under the table exploring for lost rubber bands. While the man talks without attention on his cell phone. The earlier aft...