The Bulldog and the Hummingbird
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The Bulldog and the Hummingbird
About the Author Jessica Wilson is a writer of Jamaican and British descent. Jessica was a participant within Penguin Random House’s Write Now diversity initiative, shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a recipient of a GoFundMe award. Jessica is the author of the highly-acclaimed children’s book ‘Sofia the Dreamer and Her Magical Afro’ and her second collection, ‘The Shadow of Your Lashes’ is an ensemble of micro-poems tracing the journey to self-love. For further information, please visit www.jessica-wilson.com
About the Illustrator Melissa Baltazar is an artist and illustrator based in São Paulo, Brazil. Her previous clients include Universa, Vans and Vogue Brazil. Melissa’s most recent large scale works explore women struggling to exist amidst societal symbols. She sites writer Clarisse Pinkola Estés and artist Louise Bourgeois as major inspirations.
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Also by Jessica Wilson
Sofia the Dreamer and Her Magical Afro The Shadow of Your Lashes: Selected Poems A is for Ackee
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JESSICA WILSON
The Bulldog and the Hummingbird
TALLAWAH PUBLISHING
Copyright ©Tallawah Publishing www.tallawahpublishing.com
Text ©Jessica Wilson 2020 Illustrations ©Melissa Baltazar 2020
First published in the UK by Tallawah Publishing, London
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-5272-5910-2
Illustrated by Melissa Baltazar Photography by Paul Martin Printed in Lithuania
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For my grandparents
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Contents
The Fragments I Have Shored
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The Wooden Sky
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Smoke and Mirrors
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Saccharine
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Discarded Cargo
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Cornerstone
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The Circle Line
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The Bulldog and the Hummingbird
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Peeling Skin
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How Newness Enters the World
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Tangled in the Kinks
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The Friends
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The Lost Rivermaid’s Tale
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Before Columbus
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Past Imperfect
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Sunset Silencing
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The Shadow of Your Lashes
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In the Market
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Writhing in the Dark
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Aftermath
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The Sisters
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See Me and Come Live With Me
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The Passport Office
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Downtown Flood
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Beloved
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The Bulldog
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The Bulldog
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The Bulldog
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The Bulldog
The Fragments I Have Shored I.
Long road
He sees her in the field where hummingbirds sup from the pupils of hibiscus flowers. Laughter spills from her as she hangs out the washing. She is much younger than him; untouched by the city’s mazes and green as St Mary’s leaf-flecked hills.
II. Tiresias He has never known Kildare, its thick black nights or papaya-coloured mornings; yet he clings to their stories just as jewel-green veins must clutch arteries.
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III.
The lucky ones
We sprang from navel seeds planted beneath the ackee tree, fed by the red-dirt heat. We played beside column-stilts under the oak floor sky and firefly stars where iridescent duppies higher than bauxite plants tapped on our window panes with vine-long limbs. We learnt to swim gripping bobbing watermelons in the Caribbean Sea which spat us out onto gold-plated asphalt.
IV.
What the water gave me
His words prod the air which alights like disturbed phosphorus and knocks him off the boat. He topples like a domino piece into the city’s glass eye river where blood-water heavies his lungs with silent things: ladies who lunched with tarnished teeth, the taste of poisoned yams. Severed-finger biscuits. The marine cargo’s clang.
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The Wooden Sky I. Firefly Stars We play under the house. Winnie say the wooden floors are the sky and fireflies, stars. Audrey laugh. Winnie and me count their trails. Winnie cry in the night, wailing spirit bright like the midday sun, set to take her. Mama hold Winnie tight-tight as we must hold rolling watermelons to float at Annotta Bay beach. Mama and me preparing ackee when she tell me in England the streets paved with gold and opportunity drop from the sky like ripe mango. Mama say she will send for us girls. Mama face wet like leaves after rainfall. Audrey tougher than coconut shell, she say, don’t make Audrey pinch Winnie. Look after your sisters and help Miss Mattie. Don’t make Audrey pinch Winnie.
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II. Darker than Hurricane Weather Miss Mattie and Lizbet skin black like papaya seed. Miss Mattie house pink like papaya flesh. Miss Mattie warn us not to touch. Miss Mattie have yellow crochet swans and a picture of her royal highness on the wall. Winnie bawl when the almond tree tap the window. We eat yellow yam and dumpling. Miss Mattie and Lizbet have tinned mackerel and plantain. Winnie whisper, ‘my belly paining’. Sickness growing in my body like fear. Miss Mattie say when Mama meagre and belly round with Audrey she can’t hold nothing else down “but my sweet coco tea”. I wretch. “Stop shaking!” Audrey scream. Winnie lips favour green banana. Death filling my lungs like salt water. The kitchen darker than hurricane weather.
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I hang over my draped body. Winnie raise her face to me. “It was the yellow yam”, Miss Mattie say, “Brother Wray tell me the higgler women poisoning the ground provisions to catch thief.” The doctor covers me in a white sheet. Miss Mattie stand straight like sugar cane.
III. Hummingbirds Over a Flower On an island cold like ice water, the street shines with rain. The houses seem full of kerosene lamps. Mama stand pale and thin; thoughts hanging over her like hummingbirds over a flower: ‘Somebody burn out the meter cook for them own food. They say that this the Motherland but England no mama to me. I long to roast fish in the yard. The trees must heavy with guava, ground pack-up with potato. Is who tell me come to this place? They say this the Motherland 18
but England no mama to me.’ “Let us go home, Mama,” I cry, “wash off England in seawater, beg a goat from Brother Archie.” Mama does not answer. ‘The butcher don’t charge for pig tail. I can boil peas and add them. Soon my girls will come. Them can bring sorrel and piece of yam. When I went to the church. Everybody turn to look. I see the congregation. I am the only person who is black. I listened to the minister. After the service he tell me not to come back. There is no home in this here homecoming. They say this the Motherland but England no mama to me.’
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Smoke and Mirrors There’s a tower in the city with glinting pipes which writhe like ivy. A monolith of caged glass stretches up from St Mary’s Axe to prod at the powder grey sky.
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Saccharine Don’t put sugar in my tea, mum, don’t put sugar in my tea. I’m already fat so leave it out. Don’t put sugar in my tea. Don’t put sugar in my tea, mum, don’t put sugar in my tea. I have mango, soursop so I’m sweet enough, don’t put sugar in my tea. Don’t put sugar in my tea, mother. Don’t put sugar in my tea. Your sons, my brothers died for this fodder, so don’t bother putting sugar in my tea.
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Discarded Cargo His sallow torso blooms tattoos in the cold night. The neon light blinks. The shop window ostracizes. Book-brick buildings contain truths but the sea sighs stories. Wind-rushed waves salt milk and honey and algae still sways to the echo of calypso beats. A lost rivermaid’s barnacled tail undulates past a blossoming corpse whose sockets flower urchins. A scavenging fish feasts upon the remnants of its brain becoming fluent in silenced Igbo and fat on remembered recipes of amala and egusi soup.
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Cornerstone cold mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold. cold, mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold. When we first arrived it felt like mi heart gwine burst like a frozen pipe. Coming from the heat, England was a fridge. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish. cold mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold. cold, mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold. Yet we were more British than the Brits! At school, we learnt about Lancashire cotton, (tings dem nah know bout here in London) We knew of Newcastle coal and Leicester shoes but we still had to shack up in one babyroom! cold mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold. cold, mi seh, cold, mi seh; ice cold.
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The Circle Line I. King’s Cross Her skin is milky olive. She has a large gap between her front teeth and a halo of an afro. It’s Tuesday morning, she weaves through the crowd, up EustonRroad. “How’s everything?” he asks. “Fine,” she shrugs. He delivers her an awkward hug. He feels thinner. She catches herself admiring the smattering of freckles across his nose. “You still driving the trains?” he asks. “Yes,” she nods. “I never understood-” “What?” she interrupts. “The circle line. How can a line be a circle?” She smiles. “I’ll call you,” he offers. She knows he won’t. She descends the steps to the station. He crosses Euston Road.
II. Mind the Gap She is eager to create remembrances and bridge the gap between the father in her head and who he really is. He recognises himself in her and gets up from the table, gaze transfixed as she enters the Thai restaurant. “Like mine,” he touches his top lip and then hers. She doesn’t know what he means until he smiles broadly, parting his lips like curtains being drawn; exposing her tooth gap between his own.
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III. Lan Nguyen, the Nail Bar Clients love Lan Nguyen because she knows how their brows will look before she begins. Last night she had a vision, the tails of 300 foxes dangled in her kitchen. She knew there were 300; she’d counted each and every one of them. At the airport, leaving Vietnam, she’d seen sheets of paper drift from the night sky and gather in droves along the highway. Sophie says to Lan I don’t know what to do. she’s the 21year old trainee at his firm. I don’t know what to do. I find myself going through his phone. It’s not me. I don’t know what to do. Sophie’s hand wrinkles, her hair whitens at the temples. The air vibrates. A train slices the nail bar in two then skims across the landscape.
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IV. The Trainee The night air’s cold. Crystalline. She’s waiting for a cab. She pulls her compact from her bag, slicks beetroot-hued gloss across thin lips. Finally. “Leonard Street Gallery, please.” Autumnal London blinks: scantily-clad trees, concrete plains, burnished bronze leaves. The taxi zips through labyrinthine backstreets. She totters cautiously, pausing to prize her heels from the gaps between paving slabs. Inside oversized canvases dwarf the walls. They feature magnified segments of fruits. Nebulous figures emerge from the works. An open hand. A dancing lady. A diving fish.
V. Tuesday Morning She eases the handle. The train glides; emerges from the tunnel, turns sharply outside into Euston Square station. She sees a woman suspended as if in flight; arms splayed, thin hair flung out, uncovering grey roots.
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The Bulldog and the Hummingbird I am British-born of Jamaican descent. My feet straddle continents. I am both yet neither and the hinterland between; I am Usain Bolt taking tea with the queen. Cucumber sandwiches made with hard-dough, Yorkshire pudding served with curry goat; I am the turmeric spicing your Sunday roast. I am riots, I am rasta, I am the duppy of a ghost. I am Obama, Bustamante; a catfight on TV; a gaping gash buried in the depths of the sea. I am a row of anonymous faces chained to a place I’d rather they didn’t know. I am the woman who asks for reparations and the man who tells her no. I am a parasitic mother draining her child’s bloodied teat. I am the invisible man who you can see; a dark drop of sun born to a city more slippery than me.
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Peeling Skin The air’s icy unlike the Abuja of her tale. She recalls markets selling iborun, presuming I know of them. Hot pepper fish soup stings the tip of your tongue. Why presume I like pounded yam? I smile a false smile, pretend not to care. Twiddle my locs as she runs her fingers through her straight, blond hair. On closer inspection, fed by the Nigerian sun, the freckles across the bridge of her nose have begun to spread and darken like an optimistic people marking new territory; colonizing her epidermis.
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How Newness Enters the World We dance in the diaspora, those spaces between no kinds of places, in the tight spots in action movies where the walls close in, slowly; at the corner shop where everyone knows everyone and strobe lights shimmy across plastic packets of dried salt-fish and rusting tins of apricots. We dance in fairytale hinterlands because the music is louder here and rawer because the night is seamless, the snow is colder and barricades of ice are thicker and more ornate; we dance because our first names are at war with our last; because we feel like flecks of dust caught in a light stream between two closed windows. We dance because newness is glittering at our pores and floating in the air around us like clouds of fireflies. We dance because staccato sounds are stretching our limbs into shapes we have never seen before. We dance because our language is not our own but magic is dripping from our polyglot tongues and running down our chins like the honeyed juice of overripe mangoes.
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Tangled in the Kinks Theresa enters the salon and sits in Patrick’s chair: two strand twists mask virgin hair. The glittering image sits in front of her. Various offerings of the world appear: bundles of Brazil, shea of Ghana, locks of India. The plastic teeth of China. Theresa bows her head. Patrick deftly unpicks hair extensions with quick fingertips. Then mixes the magic elixir. He applies his white lotion to the unruly fro: a potion which promises to relieve the hassle of fighting the frizz; despite its underlying odour of swimming pools and piss. Roots tamed and rebel tendrils quashed, a heavenly image sits in the glass aloft. Theresa shakes her head. Her flowing mane will remain until it rains in three days, the same time Patrick will realise he forgot to apply vaseline. Slowly but surely, strand by strand, in the coming month, her crown of curls deposits itself in her hands. Volcanic crusts populate her scalp, distributing their embers from root to tip.
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The Friends Charlotte and Ophelia eat a four cheese pizza, drink steeped Earl Grey tea then walk to Hanbury Street. Ophelia tries on vintage furs and skyscraper shoes in the hope they will imbue her nights with the dripping fullness of other people’s lives.
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The Lost Rivermaids’ Song When will we sit on the seabed sipping from imaginary tea cups as bubbles spew in giggles from our mouths? Our hair will stretch in flickers above our heads and their tips will continue to seek the pale blue light of the water’s ledge.
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The Hummingbird
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The Hummingbird
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The Hummingbird
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The Hummingbird
Before Columbus Where lush bowers laden with fruit and flowers survey the sea and banana trees recline; where guinea fowl speak their dreams into the sticky air and waterfalls swoon amid cassava-pregnant hills; where unscathed children play and berry-brown bellies swell; the men sit; high on horseback, gleaming and black. A trumpet sounds and the men see slivers of smiles dance as the mariners disembark: grins which squint like the crescent moon.
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Past Imperfect She sees purple algae sway between green-leafed trees. The avenue fills with water. Above the tennis courts at the edge of a boundary of rocks, a couple teeter. She wills them not to jump. The lovers leap and freeze; stuck in stasis, gripping each other tightly. She peers up. Her gaze catalyses them down. The impact of the surface mangles, deforms. Blood smokes through the water.
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Sunset Silencing Sitting outside his grandparent’s villa, Seth flits a card deck from one hand to the other. Her words stretch out; unfold themselves. Seth likes the way she speaks. The colours move in strata: red through yellow, orange and green.
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The Shadow of Your Lashes I love you because you down rum all night but only drink cerassie in the morning; spend money on a manicure but wear marinas with holes in them. It’s your isms which rile me up. It’s the shadow of your lashes that I love.
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In the Market Heat drags the seller’s eyelids shut over ice-blue jellied cataracts. Heat peppers a rumour, heat jostles ill-tempered shoppers; heat dodges liquorice-black soursop spikes. Heat throbs amidst a baseline, tiptoes across taut crimson pears, heat steps over an unforgotten domino piece.
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Writhing in the Dark yuh tink seh me is a boy, he says. what do you mean? I laugh. yuh tink seh me is a boy he says what do you mean? I ask. yuh tink seh me is a bwoy he spits his words are small and hard as bullets. He fixes me to the bed, pulls back his lever-arm and slams me in the head. I hear screams. He wriggles. I slip through a sliver. I will throw you down the stairs and kick you in. I remember us watching the sun set in the east while the moon hovered in the west; I recall indigo-black nights, the weight of his body and humidity of his breath; I didn’t think you were like this someone says. His brows shadow his eyes. I am barefoot on the balcony. Something has pushed me harder and faster than he can. The courtyard is empty except for one man whose eyes echo mine; flung wide, agape with urgency.
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Aftermath The sulking palms are singed with scorn; the sky has dulled it’s blue. A dead moth bobs in the swimming pool.
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The Sisters Two sisters live in faraway lands; one hovers with hummingbirds, the other rides elephants. Despite distance, they move in synchronicity from wooden-floored cocoons to sweeping vistas of the sea. He hurts her head, the other feels it, blistering in bed. Her tears populate her sisters eyes; one’s lessons learnt take the other by surprise. The sisters move back to the place they were born. Their bond weakens because they act strong. Two sisters live in faraway lands; one hovers with hummingbirds, the other rides elephants.
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See Me and Come Live with Me Lucid pools. The bluest sea. Imported sands. Rice and peas. Service with a smile. Spanish bosses. All you can eat Italian buffets. Holiday romance. Rent a dread. Tit for tat. Breakfast in bed. Bag juice. Box food. Pea soup. Cow foot. Board house. Zinc fence. Waterfall. Orphanage. Broken raft. Church bell. Lighthouse. Echoic shell. Gun crime. Rape by knife. Jerk chicken. Sunshine.
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The Passport Office A car clears its throat, stammering into hope before giving up. A truck winks its tail light. The sea-blue waiting room has a verandah with a mosaic floor punctuated by shards of white tiles. There is a filing cabinet near the office door and a once midnight-blue desk sits beneath the slatted window. There is a peeling linoleum floor with a crooked line through its middle; a crooked line etched by the treads of beleaguered boots, meandering feet, rock-wrecked soles, coming and leaving; pacing applicants attempting to grip liquid time as it slips between their toes.
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Downtown Flood The tide totes a turntable. Cars float like river logs. Muddy waves break on pavement shores. The man waits outside the auto parts store, neck-deep in detritus. Shrieks saturate Union Street. He receives the tiniest of cargo which he delicately secures above his head, it’s shifting limbs outstretch like a sail, a breath above the sullied waters.
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Beloved Hate me because I am slim. Hate me because of my accent. Hate me for smiling. Hate me because you think I have good hair. Hate me because my skin is fair. Hate me because your grandparents stayed. Create lies to fuel your hate. Hate me because you don’t know why, you just do, keep hating me but I will love you; love you because I see myself in you and we are matter like fruit-flies, stardust and the inhaling moringa tree. I will love you because life is a fleeting mess, only our core endures so if you must, hate me some more but I will love you no less.
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