Drifting
My diary entries end at:
“Thursday
tanks entered Denham Town.”
On Monday the 6pm curfew had been called;
the next day
I walked along the grassy footpath
of the University of the West Indies campus
the heat cocooning me,
causing mirages of people walking
in the distance.
The campus was empty,
only security gathered in groups
where the roads met
or cruised past in cars.
Clouds hovered
amidst the peaks
of the Blue Mountains
always promising rain,
but no rain came.
At the library
whispered conversations
“but they are innocent people,”
“then they should leave.”
The ground swallowed me then
the air like a wet towel smothering me
as I walked the long walk home
to the sound of nothing.
Published in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters. Issue 3. July 2014. http://mokomagazine.org/wordpress/poems-by-lou-smith/
genii loci 