Brown toes
just back from the most surreal days under a Vineyard sun
tons of people who look more like Martha
than me
islands are islands alike
lands floating in water
clean air
cool nights
the geography intends congruence
roads winding
narrow text sprinkling the tongue of the bigoted
it could not have been more
different from the sea salt spray of the sand
on which I kissed the second boy I liked
at fifteen
I wish I knew then
I liked girls
women
now I write about the lives of women
black men in prison
brown boys who do not yet know
they can be both
sexy and soft
grandmothers in love with laughter
and babies healthy enough to set upon old knees
young hearts bleeding love in a sterile
containment
if you ask me again
I might say yes without hesitation
this time
I know
how I feel about these lives that line
the pages
the urgent deadlines
the unfinished book knocking rapid at my door
the essays in breach creep undone from these inflexible fingers
penned in by the process of remembering
how do you know which recollections are wish or will
bending reality
into comets flaming ephemeral from a borrowed sky
one day I will carve whole oceans from the heavens
and write poems
for that small girl in Washington Heights
in Jamaica
there are horizons enough to survive
in the middle of some sleepless night
the science of the solar systems
moons
and the mystery of a thousand invisible light years
will elaborate itself
cliche
the world won't be as lopsided
as it was on that beach
that night
eating what would become a lunch offered
without consideration
puzzle pieces force themselves
servile
everybody should have a maid
if maids were compensated
a fair wage
deconstruction of race
gender
a way to speak with compassion
my bed is covered in me half-baked
vibrator
cat
computer
book
belt
I lay the sectors of thought
side by side
seeking clarity
direction
something that denies the ego room
to push itself bloated
against the grain of things true
On June 29, the bodies of Candice Williams and Phoebe Myrie were
found dumped in a septic pit behind a home they shared in Bull Bay, St.
Andrew. Police quickly named an estranged male partner of Williams as
the prime suspect, and said the apparent relationship between the women
was the likely motive for the crime.
Jamaica
June
we are already done with July
and the alleged suspect has not yet been questioned, nor do police
appear to have taken the investigation any further.
Local advocates have
expressed concerns to Human Rights Watch about the level of police
commitment to identifying and prosecuting the murderer.
still no word on why the bodies of so many women
must bear the anger of men
without retribution
those women were mothers
and I ache for their children
growing up
in the brutal backdrop of a love lynched
because of poverty
a lack of education
food
religion like sores will scab painful on their skins
some stranger will hold their faces up to a million stars
and ask
ask me if these lives
have anything to do with you
far and away from your inability to see the tiny arms
the smooth legs
sun-kissed
or cursed
oh darling
you will adore the accents
charming creatures of the most divine theater
we chart our lives
in vignettes
small confessional tragedies
presented with the greatest of humor
you giggle
I smile
somebody or other gets goosebumps
and finally
the curtain calls me
wonderful
wild woman weeping wonders of lifetimes survived
home meets me humid
quiet
no cable connects me to any island
tonight I am just me
cat tail
tucked comfortable and hanging from the edge of my bed
I am suddenly grateful
for walls
and wishes
and the women I have loved
here's to patience
and pleasures indulged in context
here's to chocolates
and chicken wings and hours and hours
alone
in the spirit of things put into perspective,
Staceyann