Poetry

Selected Poems

From Beg No Pardon:

How I Learned Where We Come From

When she wants him for the late meal, she calls
supper soon, Kingstown-man, curried goat, sticky wicket

and he responds, testy, not yet ready Bequia-woman,
Anglican church, basket with no handles.

We children, we laugh, head for the hills
and the tall sweet grasses, listen for the lilt

of frangipani tante. She call come in now
pigeon peas, mangoes, poor man’s orchids—

then we run, for true, and supper is all
cassava root, callaloo, very little sugar cane

and we’re in it all at once: choirsong above
Mt. Pleasant, Port Elizabeth, harp of Paget Farm

till Father, he say no, defends his slipped-on wishes
for Soufrière, Sans Soucis, Wallilabou Bay

and so on into the evening, calypso and steel drums,
a little Rasta and Bob Marley for us young’s

until, finally, we are no longer black ironwood—
wood that will not float.

From Fretwork:

Wombsong

Here I am, mom—all motive and

gristle and moaning for a daddy

but that bell just won’t ring. What

a playpen you were: Isle of Langerhans,

echo of Charlie Parker, miasma of

hominy, chayote, and fried fat-back.

No call to worry, my maker of mysteries.

You took a gamble, gave me away, and

neither of us will ever know all it cost.

A Sorceress Strolls New Grass

I am neither mother nor turquoise neckwear
but you are such young women,
such new potatoes, and there is much
for me to tell you:

            that bishops joyride in the dead of night,
            that blue’s favorite color is blue
            and earth is just a gaudy paragraph.

And though I am ripe as November, I can tell you

            no sorceress ever abandons midday
            and a sculptor is always better
            in a waterbed.

Yes, I’m vainglorious with all my knowing and croaking

because you women are writing your own Book of Migration
and without warning, I feel useless as an empty valise.
What you know makes the bandicoot fly and you converse
in flamingo and seashell, smell like smoke and rapscallions.

            You are tambourines
            in the stewing pot,
            a crucible of cymbals.

            Being fresh as new grass, you
            inspire me to astonish, then gloat;
            to beg no pardon, then begin.

From Start With A Small Guitar:

Empathy

I don’t care what you do. Find some-

one rounder or anyone who smells like

what you remember of persimmons.

Remember last summer? Violence was

only a rehearsal and we were so much

older, more fruitful. I don’t care again.

There’s going to be another intifada.

There’s gong to be a wind-up and we’ll

be sitting in an Olvera Street café, eating

frijoles and what’s left of our young.

Please don’t pretend you don’t

remember this or any other lie—

I saw you. I saw a winter moth succumb,

clutched between your nervy thumbs.

I saw you kill it with your dirty spoon.

Optimist’s Requiem

Foolish fool, foolproof fool, Queen of Foolhardy Fools, fool for the long foolish haul although Mama didn’t raise no fools isn’t part of my lexicon and having a lexicon is one reason I’m such a fool. I’ve been fooled fifty-nine times and never fooled a single soul. I’ve been a fast car fool, a fool for fool’s gold, an American fool and

I’ve volunteered everywhere that needs one. Seems I’m not interested in anything else; I think I want fool etched on my forehead. Was a time when being a fool was a slip I could have slipped out of but that was forty slips ago. Now fool is tattooed on my tattoos as I seat the table eating beans and more beans—a farting fool, that’s me.

I won’t think of desire or anything might night turn

me optimistic. It’s not going to happen. I’ll forget

how buttons button, get the cancer and die and

still be thinking may did you see that

did it look like love?