Norma DaCrema

Jamaica, Late ’90s

We were still together, a couple,
the first time you told that story.
I tinker with it when I tell it now.
Small things–some medical details,
less emphasis on how the very worst things
slay the worrying when they happen.
I shorten the part about it being so dark
it was startling to meet again
that buttoned-up yuppie
you had met on the plane.

I start with a tightly wound tourist 
at the baggage claim, who warns you 
about the worm, how the beaches teem with
larva migrans. They burrow into
the bottom of bare feet on the sand,
and only when they die
is there an end to the burn under the skin.
They die inside you
of boredom.

In my version, he’s telling everyone,
all wide-eyed and paranoid,
about the island nematode,
not just singling you out
because you were already high
and had worn your flip flops on the flight. 
Seriously, who does that?
In either telling, two nights later,
he wears tall trouser socks and tennis shoes 
to watch the Perseids, 
startling us in the dark to remind us
how the worm can turn,
winding under the skin,
leaving the toes bulbous,
blistered, and bloody.

But when we meet him again
(four days in) he stands barefoot
framed in white sand and sapphire sky,
staring down the waves.
He looks so happy, so free.
He smiles, shrugging, and he says:
I got the worm.

In my version, the worm is the star.
But in yours, you are.

Norma DaCrema is a Pennsylvania high-school teacher. A May 2022 graduate of Arcadia's MFA program, she has published or has work forthcoming in The Lyric, Red Eft Review, Night Heron Barks, Wingless Dreamer, Closed Eye Open, and Red Fern Review. She lives with her son and a slew of cats.