Filling Holes and In The Air

Thanks to Interviewing The Caribbean Journal for publishing three of my poems in the Spring 2018 issue. A sample of the magazine can be read here and digital or hard copies purchased. The latest versions of the poems are below.

Filling Holes
That day, as before, I tried to shun Death,
not knowing how to live
with her, understand her, make peace with her;
her passing always left me in pieces.

Loss-giddy the world still spun,
never stopping to take stock. Could I not be still—
beside myself with grief—be still with the weight
of this…missing—to measure the weight of the missed?

Thin-skinned in church, constrained
in black, I feared the price
of society’s shame full last respects
would cost my conscience.

I prayed broken bread
would feed, nourish me; strengthen spine
to carry this dead weight. I prayed
the sermon would comfort, console me.

I bowed—shook my head.
Contemptuous holier-than-thou words
hung grey clouds over all
hope to heal holes—again.

How sad to hear the lifeless judged.
How deep some dug to bury—quickly dished dirt
over poor soul who couldn’t yet turn in grave.
I said silent eulogy and wept.

This earth had swallowed a beloved body whole; left me
a crater I felt forced to fill fast.
The casket was covered, should I not quickly recover,
compose and recompose myself?

How should I have marked that moment of farewell?
The cross is not the sum of a life lost; could never
symbolise the root of my world
minus one dearly departed.

Now, should I compost my despair
along with the dead? I spare a second
thought for how these holes
are continually dug open.

Ankyloglossia
—acutely shy—accent; my scold’s bridle,
thumbs, I shoved over, into, small mouth
to keep myself from talking—timing
exactly what I will need to say and how

In The Air
After the hurricane,
my grandmother,
who in her basement storeroom,
had hunkered down
and knelt
her knees raw with prayer
the whole long long lashing tail of night,
ascended slippery stairs
hoping by holy intervention
her home had been saved.
She stared from ruined room to room,
swaying like a punched drunk spirit,
mouth and eyes wide black holes of disbelief,
words gone as wounds appeared.
She walked on water,
treading over eighty years of floating debris,
then could do no more than silently thank
her saviour over and over for sparing her life.

After the hurricane,
after Mass,
tales of rampant looting
circled among them like hungry dogs;
after the turned-inside-out but well
clothed congregation,
still silent, had shared signs of peace.
No one appeared to conjure and divide
loaves and fishes between some people;
divided by good and bad luck or circumstance;
divided by ability or will to pad and prepare,
concrete seal, pantry stock, insure against calamity.
But having enough or not enough saved,
surely meant little then,
after all none were saved
from that almighty
hurricane that reined in our poor
island and had everyone drowning.

After the hurricane,
came the crazed lines for food…
for any kind of fuel;
came the tell tail spoors
of rats and roaches tracking rubbish;
dank despair
threading desperation through the dark.
At night my grandmother floated
in and out of light, nightmare-laden, sleep,
waiting for the chain rattle
of locked door;
for the bark signaling predators
had come for what little she had left.
She prayed for enough strength and grace,
to give the strangers what they came to take.

After the hurricane,
she said sometimes it felt
like man eat man survival,
every women for herself.
Who had time, air, breath, breadth enough,
to free dive deep and long enough,
to understand
then these heads heaped,
backs breaking,
carrying stolen mud crusted sofas, sinks,
spirits,
through debris to homes
miraculously still standing?
To understand then the tragic
improvised or organised
bacchanal trashing of schools and stores?
Who could explain anything then?
Understand or explain anything now!

When she was able,
my grandmother told me
about after the hurricane.
Months later I flew home
and stood stone still
in the ruin of her home,
alone.
I thought fear, faith,
had been uncovered,
illuminated, as I watched
a mass of untethered particles
air-floating in the beam of
my head
lamp, from floor all the way above
my head
to the star spored heavens.