TAZI RODRIGUES

maureen 

last i heard, you were nude
in a hunting camp,

your body turned mythology
on the island you leased

for years. your decorated 
washing machines still line 

the hillslope: pastel toadstools.
every room in the house

you painted a different
theme. later, hired guide,

i toured people through
dream girl’s room, the sailor's

who’d gone out to inland
sea. we ate gold foil found

in your kitchen and took 
tourists up lead-flecked tower.

nobody could agree who owned
the boarded house you

once borrowed and turned
into itself. nobody

could remember if you 
were still at the hunting camp

where you moved after
leaving the island. 

nobody could figure out
which was the ghost:

lake-bloated house 
(its mildewed skin) or

the shape we made
around your absence.