It's the caffeine that has me tossing
and turning, traipsing back and forth
all night along the muddy trail, pulling
the garden cart to the cabin, mosquito netting
draped over the bill of my cap
to keep it out of my eyes; and wondering
how many long-sleeved shirts I can pack
to protect my arms (I have a work shirt,
but maybe I should stop at the mall
unless it's cool enough in June for cotton
turtlenecks); stuffing a ream of paper
and volumes of Proust into canvas sacks;
hefting the Smith-Corona my ex-husband
took to college in 1955; thinking of food
that will keep (coffee, of course, but
how many nights can I eat ramen for supper
before I turn into a noodle, contract scurvy,
or decide I'd rather starve?); and all the while
I'm thinking, will the lake warm up
just enough for quick dips to wash off the DEET
every day or two, because there's no plumbing,
not to mention no people most of the time,
just the two-way radio I find on the screened-in porch
on which I hear the poems I promised to write
if they would only grant me three weeks
on this island paradise.