Leaves from the banyan dropped down onto the trays I’d prepared with olives, artichokes, figs.

The great cardboard leaves rang on the patio like soft bells.

The friends visiting from Michigan said, So beautiful, so beautiful. Their years-before tiny gift pot of rosemary was now a small tree.

I told them I was moving to higher ground. No, they said. It’s too beautiful here and so well-cared for.

I imagined us speaking in bubbles, our coral chairs on the bottom of the sea.

But not for years, they said. Can’t you stay one more year?

As they left, they hugged me tight, as though I am at risk of being washed away into the night.

And every night I am washed away by night.