She is there
near as a mirage is near
present, as a ghost is present
her voice
lilts and sways, laces
between words,
between the phrase and
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of …
the flutter of moth wings
flitting
between light and shadow
nectar and sky
her voice
resounding there
between words
forgotten
by her Grandchild
reciting
English nursery rhymes
Published in SWAMP. Issue #01. 2008.
http://www.swampwriting.com/?page_id=12
On Walking to See the Exhibition London, Sugar & Slavery
Cobbles blue and bruising, laneways carry history on their backs. Following the tourist walk through twisting East End streets, the imprint of feet in roads sloped and sunken. The guidebook doesn’t describe the discordance, the bitterness at the back of the throat. Rats squeaking, flesh and bone and blood seeped in.
At Docklands, across from business people sipping Pino Gris, I watch cranes lifting and balancing, filling spaces, girls lying on grass in their bikinis under golden summer sun.
From West India Docks ships came and went, came and went, came and went. Cargo of rum’s sticky syrup, hulls glued with blood
Published in EnterText. “Special Issue on Caribbean Literature and Culture: ‘Opening Out the Way(s) to the Future,’” Sandra Courtman and Wendy Knepper, Eds. 10 (2013): 92.
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/345520/SpecialIssue_2013.pdf
genii loci 