Before the call of home becomes too insistent,
or before she heeds the call of here 
where, she tells herself, she might truly belong, 
she folds into a corner one final time,
a nook, she calls it, to make it seem cozy—
in what’s hardly a bed at all, this foam mat
a few fingers thick and covered in blue marine-vinyl
that seems to hug the humidity. 
Though more subject than many to the lure of gravity, 
she’s alone and has chosen the upper,
closer to what passes for a window on this tub
meant only to take on the locks of the canals
and the wakes and waves of the other passing tourists.
In the humid night-heat of the Camargue in summer—
up here she might breathe, or catch a small breeze
when night finally takes hold.
Still the mosquitoes will have at her—
the bargain she’s willingly made
though she knows come morning her legs and arms
will look like the odd speckled flamingo she saw today
and made her laugh in recognition as kin. 
She’s weary from the wine, too many toasts to sailing success,
and friends, but turns to the window a final time,
to watch the spider, her bedfellow, 
who’s found his own nook in the window and spun out his silk
in a magus’s pattern she can barely follow
through the dim light of the moon off the water 
and reflection from the faraway town. 
She tells him he’s welcome here 
and should feel free to have a hearty snack
to spare her more bites she’d gladly do without.
When she was a girl, in fact, she would talk to the spiders when lonely.
Now, she’s come to know there are no lonely nights in the Camargue—
the frogs will talk, and crickets, cicadas, 
and even the late mating flamingos will call to each other.
There are only those who refuse to find sleep
amid all the night-clatter, and cow bells, and busyness. 
She turns again in her nook and this night,
more than any other, a celebration of what it’s like to become,
she promises herself from now on,
she’ll be neither lonely, nor alone.