Poui xv

POUI CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

NUMBER XV, 2014

POUI CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

NUMBER XV, 2014

POUI CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING Number XV, 2014 CONSULTANT EDITORS: Kamau Brathwaite Philip Nanton Mark Jason Welch

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jane Bryce Hazel Simmons-McDonald Mark McWatt

DESIGN:

Mark Headley

Poui, the Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing (CHJCW), is published by the Centre for Caribbean Literature of the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus.

Poui welcomes submissions of previously unpublished poetry and fiction (see last page for details). Š 2014 by Poui, CHJCW, Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature.

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Poui issue number XV! We hope you’ll like the new online Poui and that many more readers will be reading your work now it’s easier to access. To assist with this, it would be wonderful if every contributor sent the link out to all their friends, put it on their Facebook page and any other medium they use. Meanwhile, thanks for being part of the Poui community and keep sending us your work.

From the editors: Jane Bryce, Hazel Simmonds-McDonald and Mark McWatt.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Barbara Southard Neighbours ……………………………………………………………………………….. 7 Obediah Smith Dress of Fish Scales ……………………………………………………………………... 30 Up All Night One Night in Rosalia Malpica’s House …………………………………… 31 Charlotte Street Café …………………………………………………………………….. 32 Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming Dame Lorraine …………………………………………………………………………… 34 The Soliloquy Of A Dying Reef …………………………………………………………. 36 The Baccanalist …………………………………………………………………………... 36 A-dZiko Simba Columbus and the Keyman ………………………………………………………………. 37 A Certain Smell …………………………………………………………………………... 39 Mother’s Say ……………………………………………………………………………... 39 The Solitary Poem ………………………………………………………………………... 39 Krishna Ramsumair Barrel Blues ……………………………………………………………………………… 40 Maria Soledad Rodriguez A Square Look at Myself ………………………………………………………………..

A Word with Pou’s Laundress …………………………………………………………..

London in San Juan ……………………………………………………………………...

The Sofa and The Easel ………………………………………………………………….

46 47 48 49

Nancy Anne Miller Saddlebags ………………………………………………………………………………. 50 Tidalectic ………………………………………………………………………………... 50 Pauliina Lehto Mämtiyiemi ………………………………………………………………………………. 51 Ahmad Desai The Trip to Birmingham …………………………………………………………………. 55 Kevin Collymore Mine Games ……………………………………………………………………………... 57 Ydahlia Jones 5

Swing Bridge ……………………………………………………………………………. 58 The Old Man and The Beach ……………………………………………………………. 68 Mark McWatt Digesting the Dead ……………………………………………………………………… 70 Windows to Unremembered Spaces ……………………………………………………. 71 Mark Ramsay The Generation With The World in Our Mouths ……………………………………….. 72 Instructions for Deboning a Fish ………………………………………………………... 77 Circling the Blemish ……………………………………………………………………. 80 André Springer Birthnight ……………………………………………………………………………….. 81 Wendy Burke Pitching Marbles Ain’t Easy ……………………………………………………………. 83 Charles Huggins Guarantee ……………………………………………………………………………….

Poui ……………………………………………………………………………………..

Cut Eye …………………………………………………………………………………

88 89 89

Tammi Browne-Bannister No Frills, No Lace ……………………………………………………………………… 90 Cher Corbin Feeling the Groove ……………………………………………………………………… 96 Contributors ……………………………………………………………………………. 99

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Barbara Southard

Neighbours

Dusk comes early in December even in the tropics. It was five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, not dark yet, but shadows had already invaded the interior of our small house. I could hear the shrill cries of a pair of brown thrashers perched in the guava tree in the front yard, reminding me that I had taken down a nest of twigs and grasses built on top of the lantern above the front door.

To lighten my mood, I switched on the multicolored lights on the tree, and crooned the words of a Christmas carol, “A mis amigo les traigo flores de las mejores de mi rosal.” My family home in the mountains of Corozal had once been the first stop for the parranderos, carolers who went from house to house, picking up reinforcements at each stop, well into the wee hours of the morning. After most of the Torres clan moved to San Juan, Tío Hector kept up the tradition until he lost his job and left Puerto Rico for Orlando.

My voice quavered on a high note, so I stopped singing, wiped my eyes and told myself to cut it out. Miguel would never have come into my life if Mami hadn’t moved us to San Juan, and little Mikey would never have been born. It was time to wake him up from his nap.

The doorbell rang. I had no idea who it could be. We had just rented a house in Villa Andalucía and hardly knew the neighbors. Through the peephole I saw a bleached blond in high heels, the young woman from across the street. Miguel had urged me to get acquainted. They look like a nice couple, he said, but I was reluctant. There were always lots of cars parked in their driveway, fancy cars, a BMW, even a Lexus. Our street was lined with compact flat-roofed concrete houses 7

with iron grillwork on window and doors. The homes were brightened up with tropical flowers in modest front yards, but it was far from an upscale neighborhood.

I opened the door. The young woman gave me a dimpled smile that softened the brassy impression of too much make up.

“I’m Anita from across the street.”

“Encantada. Gina Torres.”

“Come on over tomorrow night. We’re roasting a pig and Mami’s bringing over pasteles.”

“Sounds like when I was a kid in Corozal,” I said smiling.

“You’re from Corozal?” Anita’s face lit up. “I’m from Morovis. Mami moved here when I was five. About his age.” She gestured toward Mikey who had come up silently. He was watching Anita through one eye, his other hidden in my skirt.

Anita crouched down so that her face came level with Mikey’s. “I’ve got a son your age. His name is Tito.”

“I haven’t seen him around,” I said.

“He’s been staying with Mami,” said Anita, standing up. “But Omar said he can come live with us. The best Christmas present he could give me.”

I guessed Omar must be her husband or compañero, but not Tito’s father.

“I hope all three of you can come over. About nine,” Anita added.

It was sweet of her to invite us. Besides, Mikey needed a playmate. Miguel and I were pleased when he learned to read just before his fourth birthday, and showed an amazing grasp of video games, but now I was worried about him making friends with kids his own age.

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I accepted the invitation. When Miguel got home he was happy to hear we would be getting to know the neighbors, but I expressed doubts.

“Anita was happy because the dude said she could bring her son to live with them,” I told my husband. “You know, like she had to ask for permission.”

“Negra, no le busques la quinta pata del gato. We don’t know the circumstances.”

Miguel thought everyone was a good guy unless proved otherwise. I’m not so trusting. My father left when I was six years old, never even said goodbye. Miguel used to tell me I’m a hard nut to crack. It had taken him two years of ardent courtship to break through my shell, persuade me that he would never abandon me, but he said it was well worth the wait.

The following evening, I fried a cheese empanadilla for Mikey at his normal suppertime. Miguel came into the kitchen.

“Mmmm. Smells good.”

“I’m giving Mikey a holder. He won’t be able to wait until nine.”

Miguel came up behind to give me a hug, kissing my neck. I glanced over to see whether Mikey had noticed his father’s hand cuddling my breast, but he was busy examining the likeness of Spiderman on his plate.

Miguel released me. “What about big boys? Do they get to eat a holder, too?”

“Sure, hon.”

I fried up a couple more before going to the bedroom to look through the closet to find something a little dressy but not too formal. I discarded a close-fitting cocktail dress for a low cut flowing dress cinched in at the waist, flattering to my full figure, a little too full, maybe, but my husband was a fan of the Jennifer López plus look. When I got back to the kitchen, Miguel gave a low whistle.

“Mami looks pretty, doesn’t she?”

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“She’s a flower mother,” said Mikey, reaching out to touch the blossoms on my dress.

“Watch out! Your fingers are greasy,” I said with a smile to take the sting out of my words.

Mikey cried easily. Luckily he was blessed with a father who never pushed his son to be macho at the age of five.

At half past nine, we crossed the street. Anita came running out to greet us. Once inside, Omar introduced himself, clapped Miguel on the shoulder, and took us over to the bar where he served Miguel a Heineken and prepared a rum and coke for me. Mikey sat in his father’s lap, watching Omar warily. He was like that, timid with strangers, but in this case I could hardly blame my son.

Omar was a large man with a booming voice dressed in cargo pants and an orange surfer shirt, half unbuttoned, the thick gold chain around his neck fully visible.

“Hey, Tito,” Omar yelled.

A boy a little bigger than Mikey came running over.

“Take the kid outside,” said Omar, “but don’t go in the street. Got it?”

“Come on,” said Tito, addressing Mikey.

My son looked at me doubtfully, but I smiled and nodded. He followed Tito through a side door that opened into the yard.

“Don’t you worry, Ma’am,” Omar said to me. “They’ll be all right. Tito’s only been with us for twenty-four hours, but he’s learned to mind me good.”

I smiled politely, but that didn’t stop me from finding out where the bathroom was, which gave me an opportunity to check for myself. Mikey, Tito and two other kids were running around the back yard shooting toy pistols.

When I got back, the guys were outside on the terrace. I joined the women in the living room. A woman with black hair and very red lipstick was feeding formula to her infant while complaining how hard it was to get her guy to help with the older boy. A girl dressed in pink, probably still in 10

her teens, said her guy lost his job but never helped her with the children or the house. I didn’t tell them my husband was different. That was not what the women wanted to hear.

“Omar wouldn’t dream of helping around the house,” said Anita.

“Sometimes I wonder why we stick with them,” said the black-haired woman.

Anita lifted her finely plucked eyebrows and smiled. “Maybe we like what they do in bed.”

The women laughed.

I laughed with them, but my attention was fixed on the terrace, where Omar was talking loudly about how much money he had spent on the new bar. When the conversation turned to cars, Miguel, who had given up racing when he became a father, joined in. After a half an hour had gone by, he was laughing loudly at Omar’s jokes. I followed Anita into the kitchen and offered to take a plate of frituras out to the men. The guys had moved from beer to rum, and I wanted to make sure that Miguel got some food in his stomach. It had been hours since he ate the empanadillas.

“Hey, look what we’ve got here,” said Omar, helping himself to a couple of frituras, while giving me the once over. It had been a mistake to wear a low cut dress.

I moved away, and offered the appetizers to Miguel and the other guys. The plate emptied quickly. When I turned to go back inside, Omar had moved smack into my path.

“Excuse me,” I said loudly, drawing back, conscious that my breast had grazed his arm.

Miguel was looking the other way, deep in conversation with a guy with a shaved head.

“Ladies first,” said Omar, stepping aside.

The trace of a smirk on his lips confirmed my suspicions. I didn’t smile back, just turned my back on him and marched inside. Not much of a put down. If he was a butt man he was getting a good view.

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More people piled into Anita’s small house. As the evening wore on, the men’s raucous laughter competed with the ever increasing volume of salsa, merengue and Latin rock, interspersed with the shouts of small boys in the yard. About eleven, I went to check on Mikey, and found him sitting by himself on a tricycle, his face down on the handle bars, sobbing.

“What’s wrong?” I kneeled down next to him to see his face.

“I’m not…a….baby,” said Mikey, between sobs.

“Of course not. You’re a big boy,” I told him, resisting the urge to wipe the sniffle from his nose. The other boys were nowhere to be seen.

“No, I’m not,” he yelled, angry at me for not understanding. “I’m a crybaby. Tito said so.” He cried harder. I wished Miguel had come outside with me. When Mikey was like this, he always knew what to do.

“Papito,” I said, “you’re not a crybaby if you stop crying.”

Mikey looked up at me with his soft brown eyes, thinking it over. My heart ached for him. When he quieted, I took him by the hand and went back inside to tell Anita it was way past Mikey’s bedtime and we would have to be going.

“But you haven’t eaten,” said Anita protested, starting toward the kitchen.

“We filled up on all those goodies you served,” I replied.

No matter, she insisted on serving two heaping plates of lechón, pasteles and arroz con gandures, and started on a third.

“Not for Mikey,” I told her. “He’ll eat from my plate.”

I took my husband’s food out to him on the terrace. He moved over to the edge of the bench to make room for Mikey and me. A slow number was playing, and some couples were dancing. I whispered to Miguel that it was midnight, Mikey was tired and cranky, and we should be going home.

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“In a few minutes,” Miguel replied.

Omar came up behind us and clapped Miguel on the back. “Oye, bruddah. Don’t go away. The party is just heating up.”

It was scary. The man wasn’t there a second before, and then he appeared out of nowhere. I whirled and give him an icy stare.

Omar smiled at me, the same smirk he cracked after colliding with me accidentally on purpose.

Then he put on a high little-boy voice. “Missie, this here’s my pana. You canna take my buddy away from me.”

I was mad, but I kept quiet. Omar’s words were slurred, so I figured it would be better to wait until his attention focused on something else. Anita came out, doing a few fancy salsa moves, her hips swaying, challenging her guy to dance. When Omar took the bait, I seized the chance to renew my entreaties to Miguel to go home. He nodded but made no move to get up. We watched Omar and Anita twist and turn as the beat became faster, their bodies moving together and then apart, provoking each other to frenzied twirls until they collapsed against each other. Everyone cheered as the number ended.

Miguel finally stood up. “Just one dance,” he told me.

My husband wasn’t in Omar’s class, but he was a good dancer. I tried to let myself go, enjoy the music and the man I loved, but the way Miguel was leaning into me, unsteady on his feet, made me uneasy.

When we sat down, Omar poured more rum into Miguel’s glass. They were drinking it straight.

Mikey had started crying again.

“Mijo don’t cry,” said Omar.

Mikey clung to me.

“Those boys bothering you?”

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Mikey said nothing, just tightened his grip on my skirt.

“Hey,” said Omar, “Tito give you any trouble, you let me know. I’ll give him something he won’t forget.”

“I wanna go home,” said Mikey.

I got up. Miguel was watching the dancers. I touched him on the shoulder, made him look at me.

“Mi amor, escúchame, vámonos a casa. It’s late.”

“Sweetheart, you go ahead. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”

I hesitated. Omar had gotten Miguel drunk or he wouldn’t behave this way. But I couldn’t do anything about it short of turning into a drama queen, making a major scene, and about what?

Letting my husband have a little time out with the guys.

“Don’t you trust me, sweetheart?” said Miguel.

“Always,” I said, and gave him a quick kiss.

I’d eaten a lot of fried stuff and my stomach felt queasy as I crossed the street with Mikey. Once my son was in bed, I sang him a couple of Christmas carols and then curled up beside him, watching him twitch and mutter in his sleep, as though reliving whatever the boys had done to make him cry. I woke up with cramps and barely made it to the john. The clock said 2:15. Where was Miguel? I called his cell phone, but gave up when it rang from our bedroom. I switched on the child monitor before marching over to Anita’s house.

The music was still on full blast, but the crowd had thinned out. Nobody was dancing anymore.

The girl in pink, the one whose guy lost his job but never helped around the house, was trying to wake up a man with a tattoo snoring loudly on the sofa. Miguel wasn’t in the living room or on the terrace.

I found Anita in the kitchen doing dishes with an older woman who wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said. “That’s enough for tonight. I’m about to fall asleep on my feet.”

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“Go lie down, Mami,” I’ll finish up,” said Anita. “Omar hates to wake up in the morning and see the house all dirty.”

“Where’s Miguel?” I asked her.

“Did you look on the terrace?”

“I looked everywhere,” I replied. “Didn’t see Omar either.”

Anita followed me back out to the living room. Together we checked the yard and then the bedrooms, just in case the guys were sleeping it off, as Anita put it. No luck. Back in the living room I asked the people who were still lounging around. The girl in pink who was trying to wake up her tattooed boyfriend said they had gone to get more beer.

“At three in the morning?” I said.

“You don’t know Omar” said the girl in pink. “But I do. He believes in partying ‘til dawn.”

Anita said, “Let’s look outside.”

Once we had entered the carport she told me in a whisper. “What a first class bitch. Doesn’t miss a chance to remind me Omar was hers first.”

Obviously, Anita was more concerned about her husband’s previous girlfriends than his disappearance. Maybe she was used to the disappearing act, but I wasn’t.

“What happened to the Lexus that was parked over there?” I asked.

“You’re right, it’s gone,” said Anita. “They must have taken it on a joyride.”

The tattooed guy who had been asleep on the sofa stuck his head out the door.

“Damn,” he said. “Los hijos de puta left without me.”

“Do you know where they were going?” I asked him.

The guy didn’t answer. He went back inside. I followed, determined to get an answer out of him, but the he collapsed on the sofa next to his girlfriend and started snoring.

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“Please,” I said, addressing the girlfriend. “Could you ask him where my husband and Omar were going?”

“He don’t know nothin’,” said the girl. “He’s been asleep.”

I waited around for a while and then asked Anita to call Omar on his cell.

“Why don’t you call Miguel?” she said.

“He left his cell phone at home.”

Anita started to dial, but stopped midway. “He doesn’t like me checking up on him.”

“For God’s sake,” I screamed, “it’s 3:30 in the morning. They could be in some sort of trouble.”

I grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Give me the number.”

“No,” said Anita, trying to get it back. She was shorter than me, and I held it up high.

“What’s the number?” I said.

She hesitated and then slowly told me the number. At the time I didn’t question whether she was giving me the right one. It rang for a long time.

“He’s not picking up,” she said. “Don’t worry. They’ll be back soon.”

A high pitched wail came from the child monitor. I stood still, not knowing what to do.

Anita looked at the child monitor and said, “Mikey must be scared alone.” I took the hint and started toward the door.

“My phone,” she reminded me.

I gave it back and started across the street.

“Don’t worry, Gina,” she yelled, “I’ll call you first thing when they get back.’

Mikey had fallen asleep again. I went to my own bedroom, changed and lay down on my side of the bed, facing away from where Miguel should have been. I stared at the street light and listened for the sound of his key in the door.

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At six o’clock the doorbell jerked me awake. The first rays of sunlight were filtering through the Venetian blinds. He must have forgotten his key. I ran down the hall in my night shirt, ready to hug Miguel tight, cover him with kisses and scream at him for giving me the most awful scare of my life. You goddamn bastard, I love you so much, how could you do this to me?

There was a young policeman at the door.

“Are you the wife of Mr. Miguel Flores?”” he asked, his tone guttural, as though he hadn’t cleared his throat, his eyes focused on the white orchid hanging from a pot on the porch.

I nodded.

“Your husband is badly injured. I’ve come to take you to San Jorge hospital.”

“Give me a minute.”

I ran back into the house, got dressed, and scooped Mikey up in my arms. The policeman agreed to drop him off at Mami’s place, just five minutes away. Mikey fell asleep again on the way over.

Once we had dropped Mikey off, it started to drizzle. I asked the policeman, “Was it a bad accident?”

The officer didn’t answer right away. I started a silent prayer.

“It wasn’t an accident. We think it might have been a carjacking.”

The pit in my stomach was growing. I tried to keep praying, but the words wouldn’t come. The drizzle had turned into a steady rain. The policeman was driving very fast. A car cut into our lane, and he slammed on the brakes, throwing me forward. My head hit the glass partition. At the time it didn’t hurt.

“Sorry,” said the policeman, bringing the car under control. “Some idiot on his cell phone.”

We drove in silence until he pulled up at the hospital.

“He’ll be okay, won’t he?”

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The policeman turned toward me without looking at my eyes. His badge was shiny, the upholstery was covered in yellowing plastic and there were smudges on the front window left by a faulty windshield wiper.

“I don’t know how to tell you this, señora. Your husband is dead.”

I had known it all along, from the moment the policeman appeared in my doorway, and spoke those first halting words. Running into the house, pulling on my clothes, making arrangements for Mikey, climbing into the police car, and rushing through the morning traffic was all a charade to prolong the time that I could hope and pray to God that Miguel was alive.

The next day a detective came to talk to me. Mami brought him into the room. He was very polite, saying how sorry he was for my loss, expressing concern for my young son. Still groggy from the heavy dose of tranquilizers that got me through the night, I had to will myself to concentrate on his words, try to make sense of what he was saying. Miguel had been found several yards from the car, bleeding from two gunshot wounds, one that exited the shoulder, and another that lodged in his intestines.

“It was probably one of those expandable bullets, you know, the kind the drug lords use. Pardon my saying so, señora, but there was a lot of blood. It’s a miracle he could get out of the car.”

Grogginess gave way to a painful tightness in the back of my throat that wouldn’t let me breathe.

Instinctively I put my head down. The blackness clouding my vision receded with each gulp of air.

The officer was still talking. “He was trying to go for help.”

Fighting for his life, Miguel had dragged himself out of the car, gone as far as he could. He loved me, and he fought for his life, so he could come home to Mikey and me. But he couldn’t go very far because his intestines were ripped open and blood was gushing out, like a flood carrying him away from us.

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“The other guy made it to the hospital,” said the detective. “Two blocks away. He was shot, too, but not so badly injured.”

By this time the fuzziness in my head had cleared. “What I don’t understand is why the hospital didn’t send an ambulance to pick up my husband? He was left there to bleed to death.”

“According to the hospital, your husband’s friend never mentioned that there was a guy with him in the car.”

“He wasn’t Miguel’s friend.”

“How long did your husband know Omar Vazquez?”

“He met him for the first time that night.”

“He meets this guy for the first time, and goes out with him at three in the morning?”

“You don’t understand. Miguel loves cars. He gave up racing when he became a father. It was a Lexus sports model.”

The detective looked unconvinced. He got out a handkerchief to wipe his face. I didn’t like the direction the whole conversation was taking. The detective hadn’t mentioned doing anything to find out who killed Miguel.

“Do you have a suspect?” I asked.

“We’re still investigating,” said the detective. “Look, I’m sorry, but I need to ask you some routine questions. Did your husband do drugs?”

“No. Never.”

“Mira, señora, it would help us find the killer if you would just be honest with us.”

“I am being honest. He never did drugs even in college. Much less now he has a wife and son.

We do everything as a family. He doesn’t even go out with the guys.” I stopped, aware that I was talking in the present tense.

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“It’s something we have to ask,” said the detective.

“And this Omar character, have you asked him whether he does drugs?”

“He’s still in the hospital.”

“He’s not unconscious, is he?”

“We don’t have to ask him. He has a record as a drug dealer. What I’m trying to find out is what part your husband played. He was driving the car.”

The policeman stopped abruptly to take a call on his cell. “I’ll be right there,” he said into the phone, got up and walked to door. Before closing it behind him he turned and said. “Gotta run.

It’s an emergency. Thanks for your cooperation, señora.”

I stared at the closed door. What in hell did he mean about Miguel playing a part? The detective himself had said Omar had a record. So Omar was the one pulling the strings, putting Miguel to drive, hoping to throw some rival dealer trying to nail him off the scent. It was so obvious. But the detective didn’t seem to get it.

When Mami came back into the room, I was sobbing.

“What is it?”

“Mami, Miguel bled to death, trying to crawl to get help. Oh my God, why didn’t I check to see he had his cell phone before we left home? He couldn’t even call.”

“Mija, it’s not your fault.”

“They’re trying to pin it on Miguel, say he was mixed up in drugs.”

“They have to look at that angle.”

“Mami, you know him, Miguel is the last person in the world to be involved in anything like that.”

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“Mija, calmate, the policeman is just doing his job. I’ve lived longer than you, and the world has many surprises. You never know about men. I would have never thought your father would betray me with another woman, but he was doing it with half of Corozal.”

Over the years, I had grown accustomed to Mami venting. It wasn’t her fault she could never get over her bitterness. But she didn’t have to paint Miguel with the same brush.

“Just because you married a son of a bitch doesn’t mean I married one,” I snapped.

“Mija, you’re talking about your own father.”

“And you’re talking about my husband, the most decent man in the world. The police are smearing his name. Miguel can’t defend himself. And you think the detective bastard is just doing his job.”

“Sweetheart, don’t say that. I’m on your side, I loved Miguel, too.”

Mami put her arms around me. My first impulse was to push her away, but I let her hold me. It was true she loved Miguel, but he had been murdered, made to crawl while his lifeblood drained onto the pavement, and my own mother thought he must have done something to deserve it.

Mami’s brother, Tío Hector, flew in that night from Orlando. I told him about the way Omar had acted at the party and what the detective said about Omar being a dealer.

“It’s sounds like the police are on to him,” said Tío Hector.

“But they haven’t even interviewed him yet,” I said. “Instead, they come around here asking about drugs.”

“They’ll get to it,” he assured me.

The next morning, Tío Hector drove us to the funeral parlor. When we got there the parking lot was already full. Mami was worried sick about leaving her car on the street. Carjacking and

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thefts are at an all time high, she told my uncle. Miguel was dead, my son would grow up without a father, and all she was concerned about was where to park the goddamn car.

I walked into the room where the coffin was. Someone got up from the front row to make room for me to sit. The casket was open. Miguel was lying there very still in a suit, something he rarely wore. His face was very still behind a veil, like a bride.

The room was quiet, except for murmured conversation, until the stillness was broken by the rumble of the compressor turning on. The petals of the roses in the large flower arrangement near the air-conditioner shuddered and Miguel quivered almost imperceptibly. My body felt peculiar, like an electric current had entered me, and was trying to find an exit.

“Look,” I whispered to my mother, my eyes fixed on Miguel.

She pressed my hand, “Are you okay? You’re trembling.”

The rumble of the air conditioner stopped and Miguel was once again perfectly still. It was the veil that had moved.

“They did a beautiful job,” said my mother.

I didn’t think so. Miguel looked handsome, but his hair was too neat, too smooth over his temples, where it should have stuck straight up. He didn’t look like himself.

A couple of hours later we left. When we got into the car, Mami thanked God it wasn’t stolen, and Mikey wanted to know why Papi couldn’t wake up.

“It’s only his body will never wake up,” said Tío Hector. His everlasting soul is still alive with God. Your Papi will always watch over you and your mother from Heaven.”

Mikey looked unconvinced, but he didn’t argue. He turned to me. “Mami when are we going home?”

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My son must have thought if we could just get home, everything would be back to normal. He had faith in Miguel. Papi would escape from that place where God was keeping him, and come walking in the door. My throat was swelling up again, hurting so bad I couldn’t talk.

Mami took over. “Soon,” she told Mikey. “But first we have to go to the cemetery.”

Miguel’s grandmother wanted him to be buried in the family plot in Isla Verde, but it was full and we hadn’t reserved any space. Why should we? We weren’t going to die any time soon. I said Miguel always thought cremation was better for the environment, the whole island was getting covered with concrete, why add more? Mami and Miguel’s grandmother paid no attention. The two of them settled on a cemetery on the outskirts of Bayamón.

We turned into a wide boulevard lined with palm trees almost like the approach to the Hotel Conquistador in Fajardo. No lack of parking. The nearest plot was filled with huge headstones with elaborate carved bases, and then there were plots with simple slabs, and further on plots that had been mapped out with wires connected to posts. No doubt the cemetery advertised something for every taste and every budget.

Uncle Hector took Mikey by the hand. Mami told me to wait, she would get an umbrella out of the trunk to protect us from the sun. I had always hated the way she fussed. Don’t go out in the rain, you might catch cold, don’t go out in the sun, it will ruin your complexion. I walked fast.

The blue sky with scattered clouds and the heat of the sun on my head momentarily made me feel better. It certainly beat sitting in that oppressive little room, separated by a veil from what was supposed to be Miguel but wasn’t.

People came over to express their condolences. Some stood shyly, uncertain how to talk to me, and others put their arms around me blocking my view of three workmen digging. Red clay soil was piling up on three sides of a rectangular hole.

23

While I was thinking about how to get through the ceremony, I caught sight of Anita at a distance, coming out of the parking lot. There was no mistaking her swaying walk, balancing on four inch heels. She was with a girlfriend, the one with the baby at the party.

“Omar’s girlfriend is over there. I don’t want to see her,” I said to Mami in a whisper.

Mami went over to Tío Hector. For a man his size he moved real fast to cut Anita off before she got anywhere near me. People were watching them, tipped off something was happening by Tio Hector’s lumbering run. A murmur rippled through the crowd as the news spread that Anita was the wife of the other guy that got shot. All during the funeral people had been telling me how wonderful Miguel was, how much they will miss him. What they weren’t saying in front of me is that no one gets shot at four in the morning for no reason.

I went over to Jimmy Jiménez, the Pentecostal minister, and told him I’d changed my mind. I would talk at the ceremony. After the workmen finished putting up a white awning above the hole in the red clay earth, they turned their attention to tightening the ropes around the coffin.

The minister led me to a folding chair next to him, and we waited while everyone crowded under the tent to escape the blazing sun.

It wasn’t until they had lowered the coffin that the minister began to speak. He talked about a young man cut down in the prime of life, a good husband, a good father, and the mercy of God. I didn’t see what God’s mercy had to do with it. When my turn came, I tried to tell them what Miguel was really like, what he did for his granny when she broke her leg, the way he jumped into the river near El Yunque with his clothes on when Mikey lost his footing, how he read Mikey a story every night, helped me in the kitchen even when he was working full time and studying at night, and gave up car racing because he couldn’t take that kind of risk now that he was a husband and father. I kept on talking.

24

The workmen were standing around leaning on their shovels, bored looks on their faces, anxious to finish the day’s work, but I was not going to stop talking until every single person understood that it wasn’t Miguel’s fault. The minister put his arm around my shoulder. I broke down and stopped talking.

We threw flowers into the coffin. The last petals were still floating in the air, when the workmen grabbed their shovels and proceeded to pile the red dirt back into the hole, covering the coffin, patting the earth down firmly. Mikey was in Mami’s arms staring down at the workmen, a puzzled look on his face.

On the ride back home, Mikey told me they shouldn’t have put all that dirt on top of Papi, because he wouldn’t be able to get out. Mami quickly took over, and explained what death means, how it’s his soul not his body that lives on in Heaven. Her words were soft and musical and full of crap. I wanted to yell at her to shut up, stop the car, and let Mikey and me go back to dig him out. I would hold him tight, run my fingers through his hair, and lick every grain of red dirt on his body with my warm tongue, until he quivered, and his eyelids opened to my kisses.

Mami insisted that Mikey and I should stay with her that night.

“NO, Mami, I can’t.”

There must have been an edge to my voice that warned her to leave me be.

“Then let Mikey stay over with me,” she said.

“Okay.”

I knew that it wouldn’t be good for Mikey to be with me in my strange state, or maybe I wasn’t thinking about my son at all. I wanted to be alone in the house with Miguel. At that moment I didn’t believe in the afterlife, the soul, or Heaven, and least of all in God’s mercy. But I did believe that Miguel would find a way to come to me when I was alone in the house.

25

After unlocking the door, I could still see Mami’s car outside. Impatient to be alone, I waved to her that everything was all right. It was dusk, but I made no move to turn on the lights. Outside the brown thrashers were calling to each other. My restless pacing from room to room did nothing to bring Miguel closer. I opened the closet in our bedroom and reached for his pajamas hanging from a hook and lay down on my side of our bed, drinking in his acrid sweet smell. I closed my eyes and felt the weight of his body by my side.

We used to have long talks in bed about our future plans. Sometimes, we talked about the little problems that come up in any marriage, but Miguel had a gentle way of discussing things that always reassured me of his love. It took me a while to get the knack, after all Mami and I fight all the time, but eventually talking gently with Miguel became second nature. So now I started to talk softly, reassuring him what happened wasn’t his fault. I just wanted him to explain one small thing to me. Why didn’t he listen when I urged him to come home? He must have heard the concern in my voice, but didn’t respond. What happened, how could he have ignored my pleadings and his son’s distress?

I kept my eyes tightly closed and felt him caressing my hair, saying how sorry he was, everything would be all right, would I please forgive him.

“But it’s not going to be all right, Miguel. It’s NEVER EVER going to be all right. You forgot about Mikey and me.”

He didn’t want me to see it that way. It was just drunken foolishness. It could have happened to anyone, and he never imagined the consequences.

“NO!” I wasn’t going to continue talking calmly, pretending that he hadn’t destroyed everything.

“You acted like Omar was more important than me,” I screamed. “You were trying to impress him, show off that you can hold your alcohol like a man. And you weren’t going to go home just 26

because your wife asked you. What in hell got into you, Miguel? How could that creep, that macho bastard who was eyeing your wife, get a hold over you? The policeman wanted to know what part you played. Well, I’ll tell you. You were Omar’s puppet. He pulled the strings and you jumped, you goddamn bastard, you performed for him. Don’t you dare tell me you just made one little mistake, but you really love me. Escúchame, Miguel, you didn’t love us enough. Not nearly enough.”

I thrust his pajamas away from me and opened my eyes.

“You betrayed us. You chose Omar over me and Mikey, and I’ll never forgive you as long as I live.”

Miguel was no longer there. Even the depression on his side of the bed, the creases where his body had once been, had disappeared.

What happened next is all mixed up, but I must have gone to the closet and pulled down all his things, because there were clothes all over the floor. Then I threw all the photos of him, our wedding pictures, Miguel with baby Mikey, at the wall, laughing as each glass shard fell with a tinkle on the tile floor. But that wasn’t enough. I wanted to tear every picture to shreds. I slipped, fell heavily, and began to crawl, only dimly aware of the throbbing pain in my knee, trailing blood behind me.

I don’t’ remember much else about that night. When I woke up the next morning my throat was parched. I stumbled to the toilet and wretched, first solids and then liquid, and then pure water until I collapsed on the tile and wept. Finally I got up and showered. I had just begun to attack the mess in the bedroom when the doorbell rang.

At the door was a detective who introduced himself as some Martínez, Juan, I think. It wasn’t the same detective that came before. This one was real young, face scarred with acne, probably his

27

first week on the force. He told me the first detective had too much on his plate, fifteen assassinations and two crimes of passion, so the case had been reassigned.

Of course, I had to explain everything again. And then he said I was mistaken. Omar had no police record. This Martínez guy almost accused me of lying when I insisted that his colleague on the force had told me Omar was a dealer. What a goddamn jerk. But that’s not all. The idiot tried to sweet talk me, tell me it was best for me to forget about this tragedy, take care of my son.

An attractive woman like you should have no trouble finding a new husband. I told him to show a little respect. My husband was buried only yesterday. He apologized, said he didn’t mean it that way.

“Yes, you did,” I screamed.

He left quickly without saying goodbye, which was lucky, because if he said anything more I would have slapped his face.

I called Mami and she came over with Tío Héctor. I told them what had happened.

“That’s what the goddamn jerk of a detective said, giving me the once over, the son of a bitch.”

“Mija, cálmate.”

“I wanted to hit the sleazeball. Goddamn pimply creep.”

Tío Héctor shook his head. “Not a good idea to assault a policeman. Escúchame, Gina, you’re a daughter to me. It’s my duty to tell you the way things really are. The detective may have had ulterior motives, but he was right about one thing, your number one priority right now is protecting yourself. Your son needs you. You have to be very careful. This guy Omar sounds like a very dangerous man.”

“Tío, I don’t care. I’m going to call the first detective and insist he get back on the case. At least he found out something. It’s obvious that Omar used Miguel as a shield. He could care less that

28

Miguel was dying on the street while the doctors fixed him up in the hospital. The man is evil.

I’m sure that Miguel’s murder is not the only one on his hands. I want justice for my husband.”

“Cálmate, mija.”

“I don’t want to calm down.”

Tío Héctor let me cry. In a very soft voice he said, “Mija, please listen to me carefully. It saddens me to tell you this. The world is not a pretty place, and justice is hard to come by, at least for little people like us. We know Omar is a bad man, but we don’t know what connections he has, or who’s backing him. Drug lords have long arms that reach even into law enforcement. My advice, from the heart, is not to push too hard. You don’t want to get in this Omar guy’s way.

Leave this neighborhood. Give up the house, move in with your mother for a couple of years and rebuild your life.”

“No. Miguel needs me. He was a good man. I won’t let his name be blackened.”

“Your son needs you more. Do you want to leave him an orphan? Believe me, if Miguel could hear us now, he’d agree with me,” said my uncle.

I didn’t back down right away. I called the first detective and tried to get him back on the case. I went to the precinct and asked to talk to the supervisor. He promised me to look into it. Nothing came of it. I got in touch with a cousin who had connections, but that didn’t lead to anything either.

For months I cried every day for hours at a time. Eventually I took my uncle’s advice, moved in with Mami and found a full time job to keep Mikey in a good school. A couple of years later Omar was sentenced to five years, not for murder or drug trafficking, but domestic violence that left his wife permanently crippled. I was sure it was Anita, but the picture in the paper was not her.

29

After Omar was jailed, I drove by my old house and parked on the other side of the street. There was a nest in the guava tree in the yard. A couple with a little girl came out, got into a grey car, and drove away.

I stopped going to church. Mami kept going on and on about how worried she was my soul would burn in hell, but I didn’t care.

“Take Mikey with you if you have to save someone,” I said.

I cried the whole three hours they were gone.

When I finally went back the minister asked me gently what had kept me away. I told him I lost my faith in God’s mercy when my husband was killed. He understood. Even Mother Theresa went through periods of not believing, he said.

But I never told the minister or anyone else about my real sin. I had summoned Miguel’s living soul to me, then stabbed where it would hurt him most, payback for leaving me. “You didn’t love me enough,” I told him, my dear sweet Miguel who had crawled twenty yards on his stomach with his intestines dragging on the ground to come home to me.

Obediah Smith Dress of Fish Scales For Lillian Louise Wells-Smith

don't be selfish lemme smell your shellfish let me shell your shell fish do you sell fish must I buy fish scale fish or shellfish

30

used to love to watch mom scale fish scales flying everywhere about her and over her in our back yard used to watch her until I was myself being showered in scales flying when I scraped the wrong way which was the right way

Up all Night one Night In Rosalia Malpica’s House for A.G.M.W.

oh, last night there was a lot of conch slop for hours and hours, nonstop, how she inspired me she always inspires me to go conchin' when I come in all those conchs to crack to extract from shells so many conch what een gat no bone white muscles, white meat conchs in schools crawling across floors of oceans floors of seas she is flawless, she is beautiful there was a lot of conch slop, last night, to clean up off the floor where I admired her, where she 31

admired me I in a sea of her, she in a sea of me this is the season for scorch conch and crack conch and conch fritters time to get crackin' there was a lot of conch slop, last night to feed fish- for fish bait- to catch fish for sea gulls to delight in, to fight over so much conch slop to throw overboard when day clean day came as a surprise hours and hours with her where time went- how time flew there was a lot of conch slop when the sun came up to clean up off the floor where we had spent the night a night that was a lifetime

Charlotte Street Cafe For Sherma Adrian

what is it about her lively eyes her lovely eyes, that draws me what is it about her that has me thinking of her, here and now as innocent as cherry tomatoes as fresh as salad with or without oil and vinegar dressing added as black as a blackboard I could write on, mark on, draw on with white 32

or with whatever color chalk what have I to teach her what does she have to learn would not want to take innocence from her eyes with a poem, with pin prick with pen pricking perfection prickle or prickles to remove from here or there a foot or finger or from her derriere sea urchin or bushes, resulting in injury the things in this world which threaten such loveliness surprise to find it in her, intact wondered where in this world could she have been from does she read, I wonder has she read Danticat has she read Cadet Oh, and there are others but how does literature compare with the history she is part of has resulted from what of her loveliness, such lovely eyes out of what is filled with ugliness with piss and shit, beauty such as this I want to embrace her, want to embrace it happy that she was not among those who were deported, sent back, shipped back fragrant flower, what am I to do with her what am I to do with it her family name, spelt one way and pronounced another she tried to teach me the way 33

to say it in Creole I'd need to get even closer to her to get it at the cash register, there were other customers behind me to be served it was the day the store opened its doors like a cup of flower petals to the world

Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming Dame Lorraine – in memory of Calypsonian Seadley “Penguin” Joseph (1942 -2013)

I left my Dame Lorraine with the mountain peaks El Cerro del Aripo and El Tucuche bigging up she chest And came to this flat-chested deputy sprawled out on a shallow sea rubbing me up with atoll navel ring turquoise earrings sapphire eye rings and aqua nose ring I left my Dame Lorraine with she bamsee big like a house that roll and make waves to mash up de place when she wine to a sweet kaiso beat And came to this deputy with the bony limestone boongie that could only make ripples like gently lapping water on a powder-sand beach I left my Dame Lorraine in the Blue Basin full of fresh cool water 34

a waterfall cascading over she head like a steelpan sonata And came to this Blue Hole deputy deep ocean enchantress serenading like a siren luring me to forgetfulness making me bazoodie I left my Dame Lorraine with our little douen children feet turned backwards covering with leaf umbrellas begging me to stay with them in the moonshine forest

And came to this chickcharnee deputy half-bird half-woman eyes big wet bewitching Seduced by her piney perfume I followed her through footpaths strewn with pearly whelk shells glowing rainbows in the nightshine I stayed with her in our pinetreetophouse for twenty-nine years until Penguin died he was no longer singing A deputy essential To make your living vital The spell broke I woke up in the in-between time/light/space the upside-down world of blue-black jabjab chocolate and mud jouvert wining and bumping and grinding straight into my Dame Lorraine 35

The Soliloquy Of A Dying Reef My friend Neptune’s golden crown has fossilised into a crown of horns.

He lies abandoned by the moon keening like a merman wounded by a stingray’s spine.

Triads of waves wash ashore his sorrow in polyped strands of Sargasso weed.

His children have disappeared in the blackness of ghost crab holes.

The Baccanalist Sound gyrates like a chutney dancer, giant wings of gauze dance rainbows under a powder blue sky, white powder smokes the air like a waterless mist mingling with a steelpan beat on the savannah stage in Port-of-Spain streets pockmarked by thousands of feet.

Seedlings cannot live in this heat but a forest of flame-orange can march across mountains, rivers of blue macaw feathers can float along streets, a sea of red bikinis can make men utter grunts, a waterfall of firelight can blind like the sun that erases the memory of cold fronts, that presses up and blunts the sharp prickles of pain in the heels and balls of feet 36

chipping among the ghosts of Minshall’s King and Queen of Mas Saga Boy and Tan Tan puppets locked up tight like gears in a cemetery of pretty mas jumping up like they in carnival heaven with no damn cares.

The points of spears could stick all they want, Bat men could flap they wings and dance on they toes all day and night, the Midnight Robber could boast how he come to earth in a spaceship, Moko Jumbie in he pants of shiny sateen could jig on stilts and catch money, Blue Devils could whip they tails, long as I could wine between a Baby Doll and a Wabeen.

A-dZiko Simba Columbus and the Keyman ‘Keyman,Keyman, Keyman, Keyman, Keyman lock the door and gone.

Oh Keyman, Keyman, Keyman, Keyman, Keyman Keyman lock the door and gone.’

Not every animal but a boy.

Stone in his left Stone in his right hand. Bare foot marching to the mouth of the gravel road.

Armed.

A woman.

Bundle bigger than weighing on her left, weighting down her right shoulder stooped and bent.

A hurricane struck tree.

37

Staggering dignity.

Crippled, a one-eyed man.

A story in his left, a tear in his right eye.

No matter how he tells it doesn’t add up.

16 years on one hand one eye on the other.

Between the two the gate he locked and unlocked all those years until the new man, coming Like Columbus discovered him and stoned him off the land, through the gate. His head all bloody, his eye all blind.

Casting his woman, his boy with an indifferent hand towards some vague haze beyond the road.

The woman will bear the burden.

The boy will carry the stones.

And the socket of the old man will remain a cavern, dark and locked.

‘Oh Keyman, Keyman lock the door and gone.’

38

A Certain Smell At the corner of Montgomery and Franklin is a smell.

It lives there, filling space you walk through and this smell, it stalks you.

Cannot say it is good or it is bad it is not that kind of smell it is that kind of smell it is, that makes you think of a particular thing a place, perhaps, you drifted through or a person who drifted once through you his smell filling and stalking from Brooklyn all the way to now.

Mother’s Say I know how much yours gnaws at you eating away the bones of you and her.

But I wanted you to know today I shed a little eye water.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day and I am still not accustomed to this lack of obligation.

Missing her tender arranging of roses, telling me again and again it’s really Canna she loves.

The Solitary Poem I have been looking in every sky 39

in every nook every cranny of soft rocks and trees I have wandered roads alone picking through the stink and grime of thrown away.

I have taken time stringing beads to hang, to charm remade myself so much that mirrors now reflect a perfect stranger.

All for-sake of yearning.

Why else the frigate spreads itself above the sea of salt, why else the sea beats and breaks itself upon the shore, why else the shore holds back the land, why else the land transforms the blood to beauty, why else the beauty’s constant urging to the sun, if not for the hunger of hope?

In every raised glass I have been looking.

Dissected every gesture, dismissed no tongue, sang in tunnels and listened for the echo beneath the sigh.

I have glanced sideways in crowds of streets followed footfalls, broken open promises, read aloud each fine print word traced, retraced with fingers and with feet.

I am worn of looking yet look still and wait and wonder if you are looking too.

Krishna Ramsumair Barrel Blues “Carlyle”.

Tantie’s voice was an imitation of soft and soothing in sharp contrast to the usual sharp rasping and a few decibels higher voice that she used in communicating with him.

40

Carlyle detected the nuance and understood what it was meant to convey.

Unsettling news “Yes,” he replied, his anxiety being relayed in a barely noticeable tremor.

“Carlyle, I have something to tell you.”

“What?” he was abrupt, tiring of the hypocrisy.

“You know your mother was a little sick.”

“Yes, I know. The last time I spoke to her she told me not to worry, that it was no big thing.

“Well Carlyle, I think you should worry”.

She sounded quite contrite now, and this coupled with her original funeral tone had him quite confounded.

She also, was tiring of her farcical role and dropped it on him.

“Carlyle, your mother passed!”

“Passed? Where she pass gone?”

“Carlyle, she dead!”

He had not seen his mother since he was four years old.

He was now seventeen, and his memory of her had evolved into a disembodied voice on the telephone and the letters that were a proxy for the training she would have given him, had she been there.

“Always say good morning and good evening. That is God’s morning and God’s evening.

Do not deny it to anyone.”

“Always speak proper.”

“Do not pick your nose in public.”

A litany of words meant to prepare him for the day when he would finally “come up”.

41

“I don’t want you to make me shame. You have to show these people that you brought up proper”.

This was the inevitable last instruction on these letters.

Among those that he knew, a death in the family was a cause for somberness, the handmaiden to grief, that accompanied all activities which preceded internment of the deceased.

Yet, such knowledge did not harmonize with his own feelings, which spoke to him of the creation of a void in his world around which his prestige and status in the community revolved.

There would be no barrel for Christmas.

This was his world.

The barrel, tantie, an old uncle in Cedros and the illusory “going foreign”.

Now, as the dust of cremation powdered his shoulders, the news, through the efforts of Tantie, sprinkled the neighbourhood.

In his last letter to his mother he had asked her to send something for a girl of about seventeen years.

She had replied in a post-script in her last letter.

“You have a girlfriend?”

He could sense the inquisitive pause that followed the question.

She called herself Candy.

At a birthday party for a mutual friend, she had sidled up close to him and asked.

“I getting anything special from your Christmas barrel?”

She pressed closer to him, hinting at the lustful perdition into which she could lead him.

Now the promise was gone.

Her friends in Brooklyn took care of his mother’s internment, and on hearing this he was asked by Tantie.

42

“So what you going to do after Christmas?”

He could hear the pronouncement veiled in the question. He was no longer welcome in her home.

Tantie’s anger was not limited to the fact that at her church’s Christmas service she would not be the center of attention, dressed in her thrift-store chic.

It was tied to her investment in him that meant the barrels would continue to come from him when he had left.

Now that her investment had failed, she would cut her losses and run.

Two days before Christmas, he went downstairs to where several empty barrels were stored and chose the newest.

Next he went to a neighbour who had always loaned him his pick-up to convey barrels from the port.

“Who driving?” the neighbor asked.

“I will get someone”, he replied.

His neighbor know he was lying but said nothing, in this neighbourhood, driving without a license was a crime so small it brought no censure.

“Be careful, I want it back in one piece.”

“No problem”, he replied.

“But I thought your mother dead, where this barrel come from?”

“She sent this one before”, leaving the word death out of his reply.

He had yet to accept this word which in recent days had become so familiar.

On Christmas Eve, he borrowed the van and placed the newest looking barrel on its side in the tray of the pickup, making sure that its label was face down so that it could not be seen.

43

He chucked it with a brick so it would not roll. Then he began his long, slow funeral procession through the village.

He blew his horn vigorously at all his friends and acknowledged their waves, smiles and greetings.

“Barrel boy, barrel!”

Not a word of commiseration at his loss.

At his almost girlfriend’s house, he stopped and blew the horn long and hard.

She looked out, smiled widely, waved and started to climb down the stairs.

He drove off before she could open the gate to reach him, still driving slowly, looking at her in the rearview mirror and enjoying the look of exasperation on her face as she stared after him.

Then he pulled of onto the main road and started the long journey to his uncle’s home in Cedros.

A few hours later he came parallel to the sea and saw a small cliff, directly overlooking the sea.

He stopped the pickup and opened the door, without coming out of the vehicle, he turned to watch the sea.

Eventually, with a sigh, he came out and lifted the barrel from the tray.

Walking to the edge of the cliff he placed the barrel down and he pushed it over to the edge, leaning over to watch it splash into the sea.

The outgoing tide gradually pulled it out to sea, and as it became water-logged it settled lower and lower beneath the waves.

He watched it as it eventually disappeared beneath the waves.

Returning to the vehicle he continued his journey.

44

It was late evening, Carlyle and his uncle were sitting on his rickety porch.

His uncle placed a hot cup of cocoa before him, the steam still rising towards the ceiling.

“I hear about your loss boy, I real sorry, but you have to learn, even at your age, you can’t really plan anything and expect it to all come true. If fifty percent of your plans come true, count yourself lucky.”

Carlyle drank in this statement with his cocoa.

“Uncle I have a question to ask.”

“What?”

“Is about death.”

“I close enough to it to answer it. So ask.”

“What do you believe about death?”

They both looked out to the sea, that in time would become part of Carlyle’s future and his uncle’s demise.

“Well is like this,” replied his uncle, “maybe my belief is a comfort to me, but this is what I think.”

He paused.

“Nobody in the history of man ever return to say is good or bad. All we have is speculation. Never mind what them priests, pundits and pastors say. But I think that death is the better half of life. You see, life have two parts. Life and death. But you know the death part better than the life part, and a lot of people, when they dead and realize how good it is, they say to theyself, ‘This dead thing so good, and to think that I waste so much time living.’”

The sun settled into the sea, and in a flash, was gone.

45

“I is your only family here beside your Tantie. That is all the family you have in Trinidad. Stay here with me let me teach you to manage the estate. When I dead you could continue it. Is a good life, if you could stand the long stretches of loneliness.”

Carlyle was familiar with loneliness. He had been alone since his mother had left for America.

Later on, he would speak to his uncle.

“I felt real empty when I heard the news. You know the letters would stop coming, and the phone calls too. But the barrel held the dreams of ‘going up’, and what it had in it showed me what ‘going up’ meant, all the nice things. Sometimes that dream would fade, but when the barrel came, it gave hope. You know how people buy lottery only to lose, and lose again, but they still keep buying. In between one draw and the next they live in hope, anticipation, and now with its loss I felt empty with nothing to hope for. It was as if I had become a hollow man.”

There was this memory of her hugging him extra long and tight before he watched her back disappear into the airplane. Then she was gone, leaving behind a flat-line of memory that extended to this day.

Now his loneliness, that in the past was just a feeling, had a bitter taste to it.

Maria Rodriguez A Square Look at Myself Choosing a gift for my grandson, I ignore the age the package deems appropriate.

I select a jumbo peg puzzle at once though I doubt he’ll be able teach me the art of matching every figure with the shapes handcrafted into the wooden heart.

Not that I have problems identifying figures.

I always recognize a diamond on a card.

46

It’s when I must match them with their pictures before dropping them into their slots that they start to curve or display contrary facets in my hand.

Take the star.

I’ll lift the one my mother made sure shed light on each Nativity scene, but when I try to fit it back in the puzzle, the five points become six begging me to listen to my father who went to temple every Saturday yet wasn’t allowed to talk Ladino or Hebrew to us.

And circles aren’t perfect after all.

Sure, there’s the sun welcoming us back from our diaspora to New York, but a circle lurks in the ring I gave up after the divorce. Alone, I had to caution my daughter about protection, to use a condom, to learn boxing. To remember there are ashes in the ring dance about roses and posies and falling.

Triangles are the worst.

They can turn into ménages, symbolize fire if they point up and water if down.

They keep me on a perpetual see-saw, my stomach lurching when my feet hang far from the ground.

And if you’re wondering about rectangles, take a minute to note that they’re in the lines we throw at stars, our zodiac. They chart routes we long to follow, which is why I try to sidestep any rectangle very intent on dragging me along to that last dance and into its slot.

A Word with Pou’s Laundress Miguel Pou (1880 -1968): Puerto Rican painter of Las lavanderas

Today I caught you, Miguel Pou, as you watched Degas paint one laundress ironing and another yawning for centuries.

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Did you see him fight to remove the bandage on his mind?

Did he stretch it into a sheet to wind laundresses in?

Maybe you had that winding sheet on hand the moment you decided to paint laundresses too, Miguel. You must have felt the fright of an artist who faces his clean canvas.

No matter, we’re both here, eager to watch women at work.

One’s washing. The other’s head turns.

Maybe she heard me coming.

She takes a wished-for rest as heat penetrates their bower.

Her pause breaks the spell of your gaze, gives me leave to approach.

She knows Degas’s laundresses, even Degas himself, as paintings know about painters and talk to their subjects.

Today she wants to assure me they’re not wrapped in a shroud, that the image on the winding sheet is yours, Miguel, and she’s in your eyes. That’s the site where you removed bandages twice.

London in San Juan A London midnight on New Year’s Eve handed me a gift in the hotel piano bar.

They dedicated En mi Viejo San Juan to me, the sort of song a friend calls emigrant grief.

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Being away forever wasn’t in my plans, it was a stopover, and my resolutions included getting back to the Caribbean and the high walls where San Juan and the Atlantic face off.

When I returned to Puerto Rico, I began to live with tales of Bobo Johnny, Mama Glo, la diablesse and others who’d survived the Middle Passage.

They thrive here, especially those douens who lured me into the urban forest to teach me to walk with my feet on backwards, turn ways to advance and retreat on their heads, and stake no claim for Limbo in memory.

Now when they play that song on these cobblestones I check for London’s footprints in Old San Juan.

The Sofa and the Easel Summers I couldn’t be left alone while Mom sewed in the factory and Dad worked.

I was going to say.

So I was sent back from New York to Puerto Rico, where his mom Mita and I talked for hours on the sofa surrounded by the marvels my father struggled to push down from his head through his fingertips and into my eyes.

Many scenes then fell into place.

The oil paint forced out of tubes onto the palette.

The grids on his canvasses.

Him squaring off in front of the easel.

My mother had to get me away before he raised his hand.

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I still hate winter.

Nancy Anne Miller Saddlebags Two tea sachets, saddlebags which could be strapped on a mare the colour of my Earl Grey tea.

Kick up dirt from the teaspoon scoop of horseshoes, as spindly legs trot over the Twining’s Estate, India.

Who are the English to persuade steaming nations to drink tea?Pour the milk of human kindness into borders? I extract cream from a pint sized plastic container; it funnels into an elephant’s trunk.

Outside, a tent trailer is pitched on Nettleton Hollow, extends sides clumsy as calf’s ears. Someone safaris in bucolic Washington, CT, and I am on one too as I drink a liquid I learned to love in a hot climate, sip from the perpetual water lily of a Limoge cup, saucer. Night’s dark brew sifts into porous flaps of a camper as this khaki drink sludges through, maps my body out with memories, I raise the flag of a pinky to.

Tidalectic The ocean is here as windshield wipers repeat the arc of the waves, rain floods in, recedes by the perpetual motion towards, from. The tide’s, 50

in, out breathe present, constant.

The sea alive with addition, subtraction. What else can we do? But record our own tracks in front of it.

Pauliina Lehto Mäntyniemi I hated the place I lived in. Not just Lapland generally, a void with more reindeer than people. Or not just this ugly as-if-town of Rovaniemi, where everything had been burned down by the Germans and then built again of white concrete in the 50’s. But most of all I hated this moldy white concrete cube house I had to live in. My only, distant spark of hope was that I knew it was temporary – I was here just for getting my degree done. If you ask me, the Germans would have been welcomed to burn the town down again any time. To be honest I had this German exchange student girl in one of my classes. I don’t know why I knew it, but she was from Berlin and she had pretty green eyes and lovely breasts the shape of which she wasn’t too eager to hide even in the winter times like other the girls.

Once I stood next to her in line in the university canteen, watching her breasts bouncing when she was reaching for her potatoes and I asked her if she could make some arrangements for burning down Lapland when she gets back home, but she just offered me a plate and said “yes, you have a lot wider range of reindeer dishes here in Finland than we have in Germany”. I guess she tried to avoid remembering the Nazi past which seems to be such a crunch for most Germans. Or maybe she really comes back to grill all our reindeer some day. No one knows.

I hated the place I lived in, but then something happened. The tiny old lady who lived behind my bedroom wall died like she lived, on the quiet. I figured it out one Sunday morning when reading my newspaper and listening to the Virtanen couple having their breakfast fight behind my kitchen wall. There in the newspaper her name stood among other obituaries.

Then I realized why all the lanterns had disappeared from the tiny lady’s balcony and I was apprehensive. We, me and the tiny lady, have had a silent agreement to leave 51

each other in peace and quiet. The walls of the house were like paper, they were so thin you could hear everything what happened on the other side, as the Virtanen couple and their crazy masochist dog proved me every day. The walls could have as well been transparent, so easy it was to picture the crazy dog running back and forth barking and its body hitting the wall every now and then during the daytime when it was alone in the apartment. I prayed that the obituary was just a mistake and that the tiny lady was just on a vacation. My good night’s sleep was something that I wasn’t ready to lose.

Two and a half nervous weeks later a new name had been fixed onto the tiny lady’s door. It was Mäntyniemi. The name of the president’s summer house. I kind of knew right away that Mäntyniemi wasn’t the name of a quiet person. I didn’t know any Mäntyniemis, but I just felt it. It took a couple more days before I finally heard my new neighbor for the first time. It was a Thursday and I was just leaving for my class, when a pleasant voice started talking behind the wall.

- Hi Kimmo. No, I wasn’t kidding, here I am. I have moved back to Rovaniemi.

He was speaking on the phone. What did he mean by that he had moved back to Rovaniemi? No one moves back to Rovaniemi, you only move out of Rovaniemi or die before you get a chance to move out of there.

- My aunt’s husband owns this, so it’s basically free. We couldn’t find any place in Helsinki that we could have afforded. So for the time being we live in this asshole of a reindeer.

Who we?

- Yes, Hanna is moving here as soon as she gets her things settled in Helsinki.

I kind of started to like this conversation. I just had to ask something in my mind and it was answered right away.

- Okay. Have a good one. I’ll try to motivate myself.

Motivate to what? Please don’t hang up yet.

But he did and I couldn’t hear a thing anymore.

In that spring I woke up in the mornings, visited my law lectures if I had any, and came back to my concrete cube usually not having bothered to talk with anybody. Smoking cigarettes on my balcony, sometimes seeing an old Lapp man kick-sledging past my house not giving a toss about sanding in the street was the highlight of my days. Mäntyniemi hadn’t 52

given any sign of existence for a week and Virtanens were on a spring vacation I assumed after not having heard them for days. Instead, I had seen this black haired, fairy-like girl sitting on their balcony rail twice that week.

- What the heck are you doing there? Don’t tell me you are watering their flowers, ‘cause those madmen are definitely not flower people, I almost went out and asked her that day. It was 19th of March, the day of Minna Canth and equality and the tired symbol of our nation hung at the top of the flagpole in the middle of our courtyard. But I didn’t bother to go outside.

- Can I bum a cigarette? a voice from the other balcony asked instead. It was Mäntyniemi. I wasn’t quite able to see him from my current location. A packet flew past my window. He caught it.

- If you are planning to kill yourself, I must say you picked up a very painful method.

- This is the second floor and there is a huge snowdrift below. I am so scared.

- I mean, I would die if I was wearing that miniskirt in this weather.

- I am a cold-blooded girl, she said. What a cliché, I thought. – Are you having a party?

- Sure, why not.

Next thing I saw was a pair of pale, perfectly proportioned legs walking along my balcony rail. Man, that skirt was really short. It was of black tulle and…

- And no underpants? Your mum dropped you too many times as a baby, Mäntyniemi said but his voice was mesmerized.

- What’s your name, suit man?

- Mikko.

- A pretty boring name. I am Pilvi.

Pilvi, which means a cloud and weed in Finnish, went in through the balcony door and never came out. What happened to Hanna, I asked myself. One afternoon she came. She used her own keys and met Pilvi smoking on the couch, naked, her black sex-hair messed up.

That was how I imagined it but I never really figured it out, Pilvi just replaced her.

Summer was coming, slowly. It took a long while for it to find this place abandoned by God. I was literally buried in school work, for books of family law filled my life and 53

bedroom. Mäntyniemi and Pilvi instead seemed to spend a lot of time naked and high. I had been used to studying in the library but now I started to stay home more and more, listening to those two shagging in various positions – or that was what it seemed like – and talking about art and moving out from Rovaniemi. Pilvi was applying to an art school and looking for her own style as an artist. She taught Mäntyniemi to draw too and they were sketching pictures together and creating stories around them. My favorite incident was when I was reading divorce law about splitting property between spouses and the Virtanens were fighting on one side and Mäntyniemi and Pilvi were throwing tantrums on the other side about how the other one had bought too expensive stuff. They were poor and money seemed to be the only thing they fought about. Anyway it gave a nice context to my readings. Sometimes I was planning to go and crash one of the parties they were having or just ring the door bell and ask if I could see the pictures they were drawing and telling stories of. Then I would have told them that Rovaniemi really sucked hard and that the Finnish social welfare system sucked too and forced poor people like us to live in these moldy houses, but I never did, I just stayed in my room reading.

It was around the First of May, the students’ excuse to be wasted for two weeks, and there was still snow everywhere. I was going to the university to submit my last paper before leaving for my home town for the summer. While reading my text through and trying to light a cigarette at the same time I pushed the downstairs door open with my shoulder and I then ran into him. He was smoking and holding a newspaper. He looked into my eyes.

His eyes were grey and the shape of them was a little tear-like, like some Laplanders have. He was wearing a suit. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but something in his eyes stood out.

- Hi. I don’t know why, but I didn’t answer him. I just kept on walking.

Kick-sledging old man appeared behind the corner. His beard was flying in the wind as he speeded up.

- Hey Mäntyniemi! Enjoy it while you’re still young!

I didn’t look back.

54

Ahmad Desai The Trip to Birmingham They left for Birmingham around 4 o’clock so that his uncle could make it back in time for the evening prayers. He looked out of the car window…. just grey skies and bland fields punctuated by the neon brake-lights of passing cars and the glow of brightly coloured advertising boards after every few miles. He could not bother to work out how many…MacDonald’s…BMW…the usual….Zippo’s Travelling Circus?….

Usually he liked this sort of thing, working out the miles between signs, counting steps, the frequency of mailboxes, the number of houses in a street, sometimes betting on odd or even numbers, or at other times, trying to discover some grand Masonic secret buried in the sequence.

- How many more days before you go back?...Just over a week, right. We’ll find someone for you by then.

- Three visits, that’s the deal.

- I don’t understand you boys. I got married at 19. Look at Musa your cousin…settle down, don’t leave it too late……

Ping: Hws it going wit my dad lol? : Ok…lol…the usual…advice, ha ha : haha d lads r goin 2 manchester wen u b bk?

It’s not good to leave it too late, you want kids when you’re still young, when you can run around with them……

New Message from Bridget : Hey! : Hey! : U fell asleep last night, didn’t u? ? ? : yeah, sori : Its ok. wu2? : Nm, jus driving somewhere with my uncle : which one? The one u told me u used 2 go camping wit? r the other 1? : The camping one : where u going?

She’s from a good family. I used to work with the father when I first came over……. : To the circus….. : Lol, reali?..jus u n ur uncle? : Zippo’s Travelling Circus : lol..thats cute ? take me :Nah, just jk Going 2 visit some friend of his.

New Message from Ish :Slmz bro…good luck lol. :Wslm, I don’t need luck. Routine bro. :Lmao, you never know, you might find someone. Mom was tryin to call u 2day

55

: i kno New Message from Jameela Slmz..Big Day 2day ;)

-Why don’t you put away that phone…..Couldn’t you find something better to wear? You could have even borrowed something from your cousin…sandals?..in this weather? look at your hair…they pay attention to stuff like that.

-Superficial -Humpf The fields were gone and now they were driving past neat rows of fully detached houses with wide spaces in between them full of trees and the grey sky. An old man walking his dog.

One hand on his tweed hat, the other holding the leash, trying to pull the dog away from something. He didn’t think anyone here was ever going to go to Zippo’s Travelling Circus.

Ping: u stil thre? : yea : If shes fit get me her digits. : FU…I feel bad enough as it is..gt ur didgits urself : ur cheery 2day…listen if u gt hitched, a stag trip 2 amsterdam on me : in that case, pity I’m nt gnna be : so wot u goin 4? : appeasement : wot’s that?

Jameela: Nervous? : no, bt nt sure how to act.…innocent, eager, virgin etc. : SMH lmao…who is she btw? : nt sure..my uncle’s friends daughter..they from the same place as my mom back in India, religious the usual. Fucking First Class match apparently. Agggg!!! : Lucky you

-You didn’t go and see anyone when you were in India?

-No, why? I look the type nuh, stage, horse-drawn carriage, elephant, marching band..Bollywood shpectacular…

-Don’t be silly.

-All itchin to get out of India -Where do you think me and your mom are from?

-That’s different : nm, sabotage mission Ping: lol b careful..u know Reza : from by the park? : yea well he wanted to b all honest n str8 n shit so he goes to c this gal. Dey alone in a room bt not alone..u knw what I mean, the parents snoopin :k : He tells her eveythin..hits smack, clubbin well d parents heard 2. Dat wz the end of dat. : Not a bad idea : Dey told every1…..he couldn’t find any1 to visit EVER..sad fucker, had to go India and even there it ws hassle : Truth kills.

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: yea : I wanted 2 be a trapeze artist when I was growing up. Was good at gymnastics.

Bridget :Picturing u in leotards ;) :lol

The road was narrower now. This had to be Sparkhill. Terraced houses. No point counting here, you couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. No trees. No sky. An Asian grocer after every few houses with crates of produce piled on the pavement. People on the street. People coming out of the houses, pantomime houses like the pantomime cars at Zippo’s travelling circus.

“We’re almost here. Look, behave yourself. No theatrics, promise me that.”

Bridget: youre very quiet 2day? : sos..just talking 2 my uncle.

“129…..131….This is the house” : g2g…….the circus is in town.

Kevin Collymore

Mine Games Sweat hugged his face and his eyes were small as if his jaws were being caressed.

Flashbacks of his luxurious lavish lifestyle mixed with the misery of his old apartment of a cardboard home. As night became noticeably later, his wasn’t visible. A window in the left corner was only so big a small animal could go through. the wind whispered and the moonlight peeped often. His white sweat pants looked tie dyed from the constant grip of his blue veined crimson dripping hands and his white tee scuffed with coughs of blood.

“W-w-w-what did I just do? Mother is going to be so mad at me. What would she say? It must have been okay because she watched me, she just watched me, she didn’t say stop or try to stop me, she just watched me. Y-y-y-you forgive me mom? I’m sorry.”

The bed chattered from his off tune shaking, his arms and neck leaked teardrops of blood and spatters of skin in his nails.

“W-w-w-what did I just do?” He could have just given me what I wanted. I would have paid him back later, I always do. He could have just given me what I wanted. One hit.

One hit would have made me good and I would not have choked him. I hate it when they shave my face, it’s like leeches lust the hair when it grows back, it itches Ughhh. I hate it 57

when they shave my face, focus. Focus. Breathe. No, focus on what? What? Life after death? W-w-w-what do I do now? W-w-w-what did I just do? I didn’t mean to squeeze his neck so tight, I mean I just wanted one hit, as all I asked for. He didn’t have to pull a knife out on me, it was his fault I choked him when I saw it, it was his fault I made the small sword marry his chest, it was his fault I took it out of his treasure three times, not mine, you believe me… right? Sigh. What did I just do?”

Ydahlia Jones Swing Bridge Margaret and Brother knelt in the sand, staring at circle Brother had drawn. He pointed to a blue marble.

“Dis is di taw, mine is a cat eye. Use this to bargain. They cheap, so it no bad if you lose it. Dis is a big dubs. Only use it when it no haffi1 go far. Dis is cwayan, it mek with steel. Use this when you have di angle fi win. This is yo best marble. So be careful with it. They will try to win it from you.”

Margaret nodded. She took the metal and, closing one eye, aimed it towards Brother’s pretty red marble. She hit it out of the circle. Brother laughed.

“Well yo catch me.”

Brother picked up the marbles and handed them to her. He swiped his foot over the circle. He lifted Margaret unto his lap and dusted her knees. Mrs Vernon from across the alley came onto her veranda and looked out. She looked over to them and waved.

“Good evening. Tell yo Mommy I seh hello, Margaret.”

“Yes ma’am,” Margaret shouted.

They both waved to her as she went back into the house. Margaret handed him a shoe box she had put on the stairs.

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“Mommy seh you need new shoes to go to school. She seh come fi breakfast tomorrow before you go.”

“Tell Aunty I will come at seven.”

Jim came walking into the yard with a face Brother recognised instantly.

“You should run home, Mags.” Jim said.

Brother heard the engine of a car backfire as it came down the street. He smiled at Margaret; he put her on the ground.

“I see you tomorrow,” he murmured.

Margaret ran down the alley, and then on to Victoria Street. Brother watched from the veranda then he looked down the alley as the old red Vauxhall came down the road. *** “Come inside Brotha.”

Brother followed Jim into the house. It was immaculate. The room smelt of wax.

Brother could see his face in the floors. The windows gleaned, the last rays of sunshine peeking through, shining onto six model ships in bottles. They were lined on both sides of the living room, three on each side. There was a record player and dozens of records in a corner of the room, next to the settee. Brother rushed over to the sofa and fixed a cushion. Jim opened the door to their 12x10 foot bedroom and walked inside, Brother followed him. That room was equally pristine but except for two single beds, a small pine dresser, and a single pair of shoes under each bed, there was nothing in the room. The small window was open, Jim went over and closed it. Brother put on his new shoes. They both sat on their beds, neither speaking to the other.

The gate swung open and then slammed shut. Brother started. Two heavy feet hit the stairs, which creaked under the weight of the body. They heard the front door swing 59

open and the house shook as the old man crossed the room. He was in the kitchen.

Brother held his breath.

“Come out here!” the old man screamed.

Jim got to the door and looked out.

“Two a unu2 .”

Jim turned back to Brother. Brother smiled only with his mouth. He walked out of the room behind Jim. “So I work all day and come home and unu can’t cook anything fi eat? Unu tink unu deh round fi unu looks?”

Jim kept his eye on Brother.

“No food inna di house,” he countered.

“I give you $3. Weh happen to it?” the old man’s voice began break. Jim looked over to the windows. They were closed.

“That was two weeks ago.”

“You wotless dog. You tink money grow pan tree. Ah? You no do anything all day but you have di nerve fi spend mi money?”

Jim looked back to Brother whose breathing had changed. Jim tried to make eye contact, to comfort him somehow. But Brother never looked at him. His eyes were fixed on the old man who suddenly became aware of the scrutiny.

“You!” he screamed, isolating Brother. “So you have new shoes. You use my money fi buy shoes fi dis lee thief?” he said to Jim. “No,” Brother mumbled. “We neva thief anything.”

Brother’s eyes flashed over to Jim whose calm demeanour only then began to crack. Jim scuffed the linoleum, and coughed. The old man never turned his gaze from 60

Brother. He grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him to the ground. Brother stared into Jim’s eyes, suddenly bloodshot. Jim ran to them. But the old man saw his movement. Jim tumbled over a chair and the old man kicked him, breaking his nose. He began to punch Brother, releasing all the power in his shoulders onto the boy. Jim tried to move but his head felt like it belonged to someone else. He saw only in blurs as the old man poured his demons onto Brother. Then Jim couldn’t see anything, he could only hear Brother’s fading whimpers. *** Jim woke up in his bed. He looked over and saw Brother asleep. He got up and looked down at Brother’s face. There were no marks. He pulled Brother’s shirt up and saw bruises all over his torso. Jim staggered back to his bed. His eyes began to fill up and he felt acid in his throat. He lay down in the bed but never slept. He lay there until the sun rose, guarding the door.

Jim listened as the old man crossed the room, as he went down the stairs. He waited for the gate to slam, he took five cents from a jar in the dresser and then went out into the yard. He walked down the street and knocked on Mr Douglas’ door. He was the druggist. Jim bought three Phensic tablets. He went home and pulled two limes off the tree and went back into the house. He squeezed the limes into a pitcher, poured water and honey into it and stirred. He poured a glass and went back to their room.

“Brother,” he whispered. “Drink this.”

He handed the juice and a tablet to Brother. Brother sat up slowly, wincing as he moved, and took the glass. Jim went down into the yard and got the bucket. He walked out into the alley and then onto Victoria Street. The street was already moving, though

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the sun had just risen. He remembered his face and kept his head down. The blood had dried over his nose and he couldn’t move his top lip.

They all knew. The whole neighbourhood knew what the old man was. Those who lived near enough closed their windows when he started. They too turned their faces to the ground when Jim passed, exchanging hushed ‘good morning’s. Some would say after he passed, ‘Poor boys. They mother gone and they father wicked.’ But they never intervened or interfered. Some sat on the verandas. Some stood in jalousies. Some leaned under those sagging colonial houses and went about their day. Children tidied the yards before school and were hushed by their mothers as they tried to get Jim’s attention.

“Jim can’t talk. Go put on yo uniform and get yo breakfast. Mek haste.”

Jim went to the pump and waited in line to fill his bucket. He noticed the glances and mumbled, “Good morning.”

Once it was full, he put the bucket on his shoulder and walked back to the house.

He heated some of the water in the cast iron kettle on the kerosene stove and went back to get Brother.

“Come bathe. You haffi go to school.”

He lifted Brother out of bed and walked him down the stairs to the bath house. He got the lard tin from the nail on the door. He poured the water over Brother and washed his back for him. Brother was still stiff.

“The warm water will help.”

When Brother was finished, Jim washed his face. They went upstairs and Jim dressed Brother. He knelt and pulled Brother’s books from under the bed.

“I going to Aunt Diane for breakfast,” Brother said.

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They walked down the stairs and Brother waited at the gate as Jim went behind the house and returned with a bright red toolbox. They walked to 10 Victoria Street together. Jim watched Brother go up the stairs.

“You probably shouldn’t swim todeh, Brotha.”

Brother turned back to him when he reached the top of the stairs and smiled. Aunt Diane walked out to the stairs and smiled at them. She touched Brother on his back and he pulled himself away from her touch. She looked down at Jim and went back into the house. Brother turned to follow her and when he was out of sight, Jim went into Uncle Sidney’s workshop under the house. *** Uncle Sidney stood talking to Mr Mossiah over a dining room set. The room smelt of recently cut mahogany. Jim went over and looked at the set. The wood was young but good.

“It soon ready Mr Mos. Me and Jim could tek it cross by Friday.”

Mr Mossiah waved to Jim and crossed back into his yard through a hole in the fence. Uncle Sidney turned to Jim and rushed over to him. He pulled Jim’s chin up and looked at his nose.

“Dat man put his hand pan you again? If not fi Diane, I woulda done gone down di road and kick his rass up and down Victoria Street. Weh happen to Brotha?”

Jim did not respond. He looked down at his feet and noticed a pile of broken tools. He looked back at Uncle Sidney who was looking up at the ceiling. He crossed the room and took a guitar off the wall. He handed it to Jim. “I look at yo work, last night. You trying to make the wood into paper? Why you sand it so much?”

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“It have a knot pan di back, Uncle Sidney.”

“You don’t have to sand it out. Wood won’t be perfect. Di knot give it character.

When Mr Andrews get his guitar, nobody else will have dat mark. No bother with di sanding. Varnish it. You will work on Miss Mary cabinets next.”

“Cabinets?” Jim was nervous.

“I don’t know how yo tink yo will run a boatyard if you fraid fi cabinet work.”

Jim smiled. He got the varnish and brush from the cupboard.

“Uncle Sidney, why all those tools lef pan di ground?”

“They come from di boatyard. I will fix dem when I have time.”

“I could have dat hacksaw.”

“If yo want it. It need sharpen.”

Jim turned back to the guitar and began to varnish. He moved the brush along the grain of the wood. He looked up to see Uncle Sidney watching him with a peculiar look on his face. They exchanged stares for a moment.

“You eat yet?” Uncle Sidney asked.

“No, sir. I arite.”

“Bway go eat. You bout as strong as Margaret.”

Jim finished the work he had started then he went upstairs. He walked into the kitchen and saw a plate of food already set on the counter. He looked out the window at Aunt Diane pinning clothes to the line. She looked up and him and waved. He waved back and sat at the table and ate the food. ***

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After school Brother walked down North Front Street. He went to Uncle Sidney’s boatyard and went to the dock. He saw Bill examining the hull of a boat they had pulled up on the slip ways for repair.

“Yo want see yo uncle?” Bill asked.

“No, don’t bother him. I just going for a swim.”

He sat looking out at the mouth of the river, at the children diving off the Swing Bridge half naked. He took off his shoes and socks and put them on the dock. He took off his uniform, folded it and put it beside his shoes. Then he dove into the brackish water and swam until he met the sea. Then he swam some more. He swam away from his father, something his mother could never do. He swam and let go of some of the anger, though he could never be rid of it all. He swam and thought of his brother’s bruised face, weary from blows to his body and spirit. But then he felt ashamed, so he tried not to think of Jim. He thought of Margaret and hoped she did not tell her mother about the marbles.

And then he thought of his aunt and how on that morning she did not ask him what happened. He swam about half a mile to a sand piper that the crown dredged, alone with the mosquitos. He looked at the city and thought of not going back. Then he thought of nothing. He sat in the sand and caught his breath. Brother dove back into the sea and swam toward the bridge and the home that was not his. *** Margaret left her books in the house and ran down to the boatyard. Mommy said Brother was not at the house; she hadn’t seen him since morning. So he could only be there. She put the ten marbles she had won that day in the schoolyard into Uncle Sidney’s old handkerchief, tied it and ran down the street. She said hello to the men as she crossed the yard, then ran onto the dock.

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She saw Brother as he swam under the bridge. She waved to him. He tried to wave back but then he began to struggle. He stopped swimming and tried to float. He was having some trouble. She watched him go under. She waited for him but then he did not come up and she started to shout to the men in the boatyard.

“Brotha have a cramp!”

Two men dived in after him. She looked on as only two heads came up. She sat there waiting. They went back under and came up. Bill went for a rope passing Margaret without a word. He dove to the bottom of the river, and then swam back to the dock. He told the men to pull. Brother’s lifeless body came up after minutes she could not count.

Uncle Sidney came down to the dock and went straight to Margaret.

“Come on Mags.”

“Brotha catch a cramp,” she whispered. *** One of the men ran back to the house to find Jim. He was in the workshop varnishing the guitar. The man stopped at the door.

“Jim. You haffi come to the boatyard. Brotha drown.”

Jim rose from the table and walked out the door. He ran down to the boatyard, the man struggling to keep pace with him. He ran to the dock and stopped when he saw him.

Brother’s eyes were empty. Jim fell to the ground and let out an ugly, guttural cry. He frightened Margaret who still stood quietly next to Brother’s body. Uncle Sidney lifted him to his feet and fought him into the makeshift office. He pushed Jim into a chair. He picked up a bottle of white rum and stood over Jim, at first saying nothing.

“How the ass this happen?” Uncle Sidney roared.

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He threw the bottle across the room and gasped. He quieted himself and fought back tears.

“Now we going outside, and we will have no crying.”

He lifted Jim up and looked him over.

“Come.”

Jim walked out of the office and went back to Brother. He saw Brother’s clothes still on the dock. He went over and picked them up and then he walked out of the boatyard, down Victoria Street. The news had reached the neighbours and they began to gather, some on the street and some in their yards. He barely saw them or any other thing.

He went to the workshop and picked up his tool box. He walked slowly back to the house, leaving the gate and door open behind him. *** The Vauxhall backfired. Jim waited and after some time heard the engine shut down in the alley. The old man came up the stairs and walked into the house. Jim was sitting on the settee, staring at the model boats with Brother’s shoes in his hands and the toolbox open at his feet.

“Weh wrong with you, bway? You mad? The gate open so anybody coulda walk inna di yaad. And look at this mess. Why you no inna yo room?”

“Brother dead.”

“What yo seh?”

Jim threw the shoes at the boats; glass flew across the room. He passed the old man and locked the door. The old man turned to face him. Jim said in a low, even tone, “Brother dead and if yo touch me again, he won’t be di only one. Only one ah wi ah lef dis room.”

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The old man said, “So you turn man.”

Jim pulled out a broom stick, with the blade of the old hacksaw set in the top, sharpened on two sides. He kept it above the door. He met the old man’s stare, showing nothing on his face. The old man backed away.

“So you is man. Arite. Man work. So go outside and clean the yard. Di bath house lef open fi everybody see.”

Jim kept his stare and saw that the old man had no intention to fight. He unlocked the door and went down the stairs. He walked down the alley and turned onto Victoria Street. The sun was beginning to set over the rusty galvanised roofs of the neighbourhood. He passed neighbours but never looked to say ‘good evening.’ None bothered to say anything to him. He walked past Aunt Diane’s house and saw Margaret sitting in the window. She waved. He stopped and looked at her. He waved back then continued down the street. He opened the gate of the dockyard. Nobody was there. He went up to the dock and sat with his feet hanging over the olive water. He watched as six bridge operators began to turn the gears at the centre of the deck and the bridge swung to give way to waiting boats. He watched as the boats came into the river and anchored, seeking safe harbour for the night. Then he looked across the river at three little boys kneeling in the dirt, arguing over their marbles.

1 2

Kriol, have to Kriol, you (plural)

The Old Man and the Beach A young man walked up and down searching the beach with a metal detector. He didn’t miss an inch. He was going to find something, something amazing. He bent over to examine each rise and fall in the sand, as if the machine would somehow make a mistake.

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He pushed past sunbathers and children building sandcastles. He muttered to himself as he went past them, wondering what treasure could be buried under their beach towels and muddy monstrosities. He made mental notes to go back when they left. They had to leave at some point.

He hoped it was soon. He’d been there for hours but that was fine. He would find something eventually. He probably would have found something already, if not for this dawdling crowd. An old man shuffled past him, his flip flops spinning sand in the air as he made his way down the beach. The young man glared at him, but the old man continued down the beach unaware of the disturbance he had caused.

The old man sat in the cool sand and watched as the sky went from azure to gold to copper then to crimson. He watched as the sun flamed out and the stars began to shimmer against the cobalt sky. He watched the young man with his back bent to the ground, the only person in sight. Then he pushed himself off the sand and made his way down the beach.

He left the young man with his back bent to the ground searching for something beautiful.

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Mark McWatt

Digesting The Dead This old silk cotton tree in St Philip churchyard, connoisseur of longevity and complex ramifications, whose ancient roots continue to move and multiply in dark realms of soil and cracked stone and long-blessed tombs—much as its wide-branching arms embrace volumes of air, dance in light and gesture to sky‌Digesting the dead in this old graveyard, it translates their lifelessness into twitching leaf and into bright, fragrant flower‌ Long before any of us were alive, it has been taking the deep-buried shame of death and filtering it through living sap and strong arboreal sinew in order to release it to the air, like breath, like light, like the forgiveness of sins; or like life again under a warm sky 70

that could be the eternity we are always seeking‌ So flesh and spirit journey to cloud-strewn sky through the tree, whose ever-increasing age and size and spread is the fee flesh pays for immortality; and those puffs of cotton, it seems, that are seeded in season to the breeze, are signatures of the miracle of rebirth: the substance of life’s undying dreams.

Windows To Unremembered Spaces Careful how you enter ancestral time 71

through windowed niches in gully walls: you might stumble upon an ancient rhyme shrilled in wild bird or insect calls: and some long-dead language in your blood might through your living lips reply, and you’re suddenly struggling in a flood of unremembered memories hurrying by.

Trapped in a web of forgotten dates with fate, whose huntress heart is cold, you sense that the past in ambush waits to shout your sins and reap your soul…

But soon you are flooded with relief as the moment passes, like a cloud: and now you can always sense the grief of the past, and calmly glimpse its shroud covering all those familiar faces that peer from shadowy, windowed spaces…

Mark Ramsay The Generation with the World in Our Mouths There were three of us in that silver shell of a car. Ema drove. Anna and I filled the backseat. Anna knelt, her weight resting on her upturned heels; her arms wrapped around the headrest in front of her. She was lit, and unlit, by the pattern of amber street lamps that lined the coast road. I watched them set fire to her chestnut hair and sun-pinked skin. We’d slept together the week before, on her living room couch, with the tumult of whistling frogs surrounding us.

But now, the distance between us was an entire universe and no stars glittered across the leather divide between our separated thighs. We were apart and I couldn’t bear it.

She smiled, the kind of smile that wants nothing, it just is. She leaned forward and rested her chin on Ema’s shoulder.

“Hey I’ve never asked before…Why Ema?” “I’ve told you already. It’s short for emancipation.”

“Emancipation from what?”

“From a lot of things!” She yelled, not turning away from the road.

“You were born a poet!” I knew Ema well enough to see the smile that flushed her skin, her hands.

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Anna leaned back, our thighs touched. She pulled my arm around her, clenching my wrist. She pointed out the Little Dipper and other constellations that she could find through the rearwindscreen. After a while I noticed that she’d stopped talking, I had been lulled by her warmth, the ghosting presence of her hair across my neck. In that quiet interlude I realised that if I didn’t kiss her, right then, right there, I’d die.

“One day… one day I’ll turn to you Jay and say, “Remember that time we were driving in Ema’s car, staring at the sky and never growing old?”

I still remember the impossibility of acting on that wilfulness. The crippling sense of inadequacy, that I couldn’t push past myself to find her. I stood between myself and that kiss.

“And then I say?” I whispered.

She pulled away, sitting up. She pulled her hair back and tied it in a pony-tail.

“You say what you want to say man.”

She slumped into her corner, and stared out of her own window. * It’s been forty-seven years. I still walk out to the boardwalk sometimes. My cane beats an arthritic tempo across the wooden panels. Behind me, I search out Accra beach and follow the turn of the coast- nothing but private beaches and hotels. A monstrous bungalow with a synthetic thatch roof has come right up to the shoreline and the sea of red umbrellas spilling from its mouth seems an untreated rash.

It stretches out farther, the Boardwalk, than it once did. I cannot climb down the rocks anymore.

My left knee won’t allow that, even at low tide. I stoop over a Sea Grape Tree, a stunted thing hidden in the shadow of a palm. I pick a few of the berries, for a moment their taste reminds me of things I’ve lost, and things I’ve loved. But they’re sour and I spit them out quickly.

This is the first time in twenty years I’ve tasted a Sea Grape. They stopped growing here a long time ago. I round a bend and my heart splits. A part of the gardened walkway has caved in; an old monument to the minister who unveiled the park lies in pieces. The side of his face that’s still intact is rusted to obscurity. His bronze torso is spray-painted with the words ‘we were the generation with the world in our mouths. Why did you leave us behind?’

The words spill onto the wall, capitalized, bold.

So many things have been left behind. So many things have been lost.

“In the back of a car never growing old,” Anna’s voice… how to be here and not hear that voice?

I do not know.

I’ve learned to expect it; my hands are filled with Parkinson’s. They quake, but I manage to light a cigarette and take a drag; it spills out of my nostrils. The wind steals the smoke. I continue to the very end of the Boardwalk. A line of rocks runs parallel, out into the water, bending away to create my old Eden. The sunlight on water is unchanged, in its reflection I am eighteen again. I close my eyes against the glare of that image- the girl in the water. But she is waiting for me behind my eyelids. Without fanfare the memory stirs; uncoils, and I am there- as it was, as we were.

* It was the day of our last exam. We walked out of that examination room and removed our shoes.

Anna was the first to loosen her thick, maroon tie. Ema pulled her white blouse from her skirt and unfurled her thigh-length hair. Every article discarded was a forbidden revolution.

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We found a pier behind the old Hilton Hotel. There, shivering as the salt water dried on our legs we watched the sun set on Carlisle Bay. Night found us at the far end of the boardwalk, where the sand had built up into dunes and the water lay flat on its back staring at the sky. Anna had her skirt hitched up, her feet planted firmly in the calf-high water, her arms pressed into her body and her head tilted high. A plane in the night sky pulled her attention.

“It’s a British Airways! Look at it.” It sailed overhead and her eyes softened. “Doesn’t it make you want to fly away?”

“Do you ever miss it?” I asked.

“Miss what?”

“Home- Austria. Do you ever miss it?”

“No of course not. Home’s not in Austria, home is so much more than that!”

“What is home then?”

“Home is fast cars, freedom. Home is no more exams. Home is right here, right now.” Ema answered for her.

Anna turned on her smiling, “There’s my poet.”

I remember thinking that she was more than us. I was afraid. I expected her to step out and find a foothold on that first star in the Little Dipper and climbing that personal star-crafted stair… leave.

Anna began to name countries. Countries turned into people, people became destinies which unravelled and rewound around a new impossibility. She wanted it all. There, crippled by fear, I thought I wanted it too. The plane pierced the world’s curtain, disappearing behind it with our collected dreams.

Standing in the water, turned to face us, her eyes a wide horizon, Anna grew pensive. A moon rose. The dark grew darker.

“Live. Do everything you can do."

“What, right now?” Ema and I laughed.

“Do it all… all of it! Let’s always be old enough for fast cars and freedom.” She sighed, “So it’s settled. Go be a doctor Jay.” She spread her arms wide, as if she was trying to bring everything into her chest.

“Ema, make it all count- whatever it is!”

“Who knows, I may just spend my life blowing smoke rings across the ocean. Or take your advice and be a poet- poverty and infamy- “ “- Write it all then. Write about me.” Anna’s insistence cut away at Ema. “Just promise me that. Promise me that right now. I’m not going to be friends with you if you waste your life.”

Ema nodded, chastened. * After her speech Anna dried her legs and left us there on the sand. I walked Ema down the entire stretch of the Boardwalk to where she’d parked. We didn’t really speak. We were both reeling.

The knowledge of freedom, the sudden realization that we were truly free without exams or commitments; that we would soon be leaving for University – stunned us silent.

In the parking lot Ema tried to say something, but stopped. She sat in her car and started the engine. When I didn’t get in she tried again, but faltered and nodded once. As she reversed I started to run, the sidewalk disappearing into road. In the distance I heard her yell.

‘Go on, chase your prophet!”

And I did. When I found Ana she was walking up the street, her skirt held up by one hand, her white, black soled feet leading her into the night. I found her alone, arms still outstretched, skirt 74

draped over her shoulders, black leggings obscuring the entire lower half of her body. She was staring at the houses as she passed, staring ni under the louvered jalousies at the lives within.

We ended up at her house in Navy Gardens. Her parents were out. She served a dinner of Austrian sausage, Austrian bread and cheese on a wooden plate. A map of Barbados doubled as the tablecloth. Someone had drawn a line from her house to the boardwalk and written ‘this side of paradise is mine’. A single knife was used to cut everything.

We didn't speak much. I broke the bread into small pieces and ate slowly, my mouth dry, my stomach sour. She cut a slice of cheese and a slice of bread, but ate neither. She leaned across the table with that ‘just is’ smile and pressed her lips against mine. I opened my mouth to receive her- insistent, searching, she pulled the heat from my body and lit my skin.

She pulled back, stood abruptly and went inside.

Banana trees grew up around her patio and in the humid air leant in. I followed her for the last time that night, followed her body down onto that living room couch. As it grew warmer the whistling frogs started up. Against the noise of their chorus, I forgot about university, I forgot about leaving and folded my body and my heart around the girl in the water. * I’ve tried over the years, with pinches of sand to make this part disappear. It would have been easier to never have followed her home. I throw sand over the Austrian sausage, but weeks pass, months sometimes- it’s blown away. It hurts anew and somehow sharper for having been gone at all. Our Eden is now emptied. Does it remember putting us out?

I always return to the car. * ‘This song makes me want to fall in love and get my heart broken!’ Ema yelled.

The music pushed us higher. We floated. The car’s speed increased. Ema had one hand on the wheel. One hand; the other stretched out the window and tried to touch the sky. We glided down that coast road.

I was the only one to see him, so I was the only one that killed him.

The dark track suit, a pair of perfect white running shoes stepped out into the road. The chorus rang through the car, resonating, reverberating. Everything was desperately, violently extinguished. The music dissipated. The sickly crunch, why a crunch? He was split open like a calabash- the screaming. The screaming. The screaming. We didn’t stop. In that moment, I looked across and saw Anna, her fading grin. The little silver shell jarred and shuddered. I was eighteen and invincible. I wore no seatbelt. My head cracked against the window frame. I tasted blood.

The car seemed never to stop. Brakes. Brakes. Brakes. They never work as they should. Ema’s foot slammed into the pedal as her silver hatchback floated on. We all floated on, floated through the man’s body, floated through the gossamer threads that held our world together. For one moment, one brief tantalizing second, we did not exist. Stretched out before us, wide across the windscreen was the universe and we were all it had ever set out to make. Ema let go of the wheel. The road was replaced with the panelled boardwalk, the car shuddered, tipped and dived.

All as one- one vehicle, one heartbeat and one fading grin into the ocean.

I had lungs. That was the first realization, in the pit of the cold. I had lungs. I gulped and water spilled in, salt water burning. The water poured in through the windows, it seemed to have happened instantly, the flood, the judgment. We were immersed, swallowed, how did it happen 75

that quickly? My head pounded, I spun in the seat, suspended. Disoriented, I pushed out through the open window, kicking, kicking, my hands struggling, desperately reaching out, reaching forward- I realize now that I did not care about the others. In the sea’s black womb I was unsure.

The car fell away. My new world had a sky, a glowing ethereal border. I moved towards it. I broke through the surface. Breathe. Gulp, swallow, air spilling in, filling me. I cried out, I needed them now. I looked around. Now that I was safe, I needed them. Anna was a few feet away, already moving towards the shore. Ema was there, on the beach. I swam towards them. Each stroke was a universe. Each pull of the water, the current around my feet as I kicked- it felt like I was carved in two. Two people, one moved towards the shore, the other didn't and never would.

I crawled out onto the sand. I slumped near Ema, close enough to feel the pressure of her leg against my back. She pulled away. I righted myself and reached out, to wrap my arm around her.

Slowly, she unlinked herself and pushed out and away from me. She found a point between Anna and me.

Anna stood.

Loud voices, so many loud voices encircled us. Four wrecked lives on the beach, a car, a manall stained red. I remember, even over the tide of those voices, a building hope, a calm- Anna, risen, standing, knew what to do. I looked to her then, she started to form a question; a statementthe wind ate her words. She knelt before Ema, cupped her ear- whispered. She grasped Ema’s hands, limp and lifeless; too small to fit into her embrace. She pressed tightly, smiled that ‘just is’ smile. She let go.

My memory here is doused in sand. I remember a pale faced-Ema turning back to the water. We stayed like that, long enough for us to recognize where we were. Then Anna turned and disappeared.

Before the beach alcove, in the confines of our Eden, she stopped. Our eyes met. The loud voices grew, they were close. She turned and ran into the night. I stood there, unmoving, staring into that line of coconut and sea grape trees, expecting her to return with help. I waited. * I suck the cigarette down to the charred, ash flavoured bottom. I let it fall and crush it under heel.

A group of teenagers walks past, their voices loud above the loud voices in my mind. I light up another, shaking gently. I just throw this one into the sea. The youths have soured my mouth; I lose the taste of memory.

I keep expecting to find her here, curled on the sand, staring at the sky. In that same uniform, the wet edges of the skirt hitched up. A ‘just is’ smileA hand presses against my shoulder, I turn slowly as only old men can, it is Ema. Her hair is cropped short and greying, the wrinkles on her face appear hard, not the supple raising of skin.

She stands at her own corner of the boardwalk, looking on at the ruined buildings that cling to the street now.

“They just let this place fall away didn’t they?”

She shrugs, “Ready to leave?” I know she hates it here.

“It’s been a forever already. I’m not coming back here again Jay. Next time I’m on the island you’re taking me somewhere expensive.”

“Poets, poverty and infamy,” I whisper under my breath.

“Let’s just go.” She scoffs. Her husband is waiting for her in the parking lot. I acquiesce. We start walking. I listen to the tempo of her step, the staccato tap tap tap of her heels increases- the question forming in her feet. I ask it for her.

“Did you ever hear from her?”

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“No Jay.” Her brow furrows, “I used to expect something. I waited for a letter… once, so many poems about waiting. Waiting I realized, is one of the worst things in the world. But I know wherever she went, she lived.”

“Stop speaking to me like I’m a line in one of your damn poems Ema!” “No! No I won’t! Are you ever going to do anything with your life Jay?’ ‘I’ve done-‘ ‘Nothing since she left!’

‘A man died Ema!’ I yell, turning away from her.

‘Yes but did you have to as well?’ Her voice cracks ‘How can you be so cruel?’

Ema reaches out, grabs my arm, clenching around the wrist tightly.

‘She said she’d never forgive you if you wasted your life!’

‘And then she abandoned me… You as well if you’d stop long enough to remember that!’

Ema’s eyes are rimmed with water.

“What would you have said?”

“What?”

“In the back of a car never growing old… that’s what she said wasn’t it? Pretend I’m her now…

Answer it.” I look down at her hands, the veins, blue and obtrusive.

“She left. Isn't that all that matters?"

"Of course not!’

"What would I say then Ema? You tell me!"

“Ask her to stay? Demand that she run? You still haven't made up your mind, have you?" The sudden pity in that voice reminds me of Anna thousands of nights ago.

“Yes, I have! I would say to her – “Was it worth it?” ”And what would you do... if she said yes?”

I push her hand out of the way and continue walking. I press out ahead of her, but even in my anger I am slow. In the distance I hear Ema yelling after me, just as she did that night.

‘You have to live for yourself at some point Jay!’ I am too old to run. There is nothing left to run towards anyway.

Instructions for Deboning a Fish The dolphin quivered, its gills fluttering, its mouth gaping and shutting in the sight of something unseen. The silver sheen of its body was offset by the beaten copper of dried fish blood that stained the pier around it. Its tail flopped once, twice. Its gills stopped fluttering. Boy watched as those scales turned grey and the inside of the single eye, that he could see, was sucked down somewhere and put out. Boy felt the soft sting of salt breeze and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes. He cleared his throat and whispered.

“You ever catch de soul of a fish?”

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The deboning knife in the woman’s hand gleamed; it slipped in, under the still gills and pulled open the dolphin’s stomach. Fresh blood ran, adding the rank metal of a thousand one cent coins to the sea-smell.

“No.” Boy leaned forward, his index finger hovering above the fresh pool. He traced the crimson contours, watched as drops slipped in between the cracks in the pier. He frowned.

“But it… Not here.” He whispered, “I can’t see no fish soul.”

“I tell you so already.” The woman rocked back onto her heels. Her face was wrinkled- Boy knew about wrinkles, his mother had them. She rubbed her face with cocoa butter and left it to dry in the night air. He wondered if this woman knew about cocoa butter. Cocoa butter made his mother’s skin smooth, shiny, like a single fish scale.

“But where it gone then?”

“Maybe it never was, you think ‘bout that Boy?” She hung her head over the dolphin, the scales turned black in her shadow. Slice- the head gone. Snick- the tail. She picked the thick steaks of pink flesh up with her bare hands and put them into a metal bucket.

Boy looked over the rim, “How come you don’t use de fish market?”

“De fish has to be cut and clean here, like so. My mother show me in this same spot.”

“Where she now?”

“Not sure.”

“How you mean you not sure!”

“She dead Boy.” The woman rested back against a metal pylon, her bloodied hands sagging beside her. Boy wanted to tell her something nice. Boy wanted to put her hand in his and squeeze tightly, tightly enough to unlearn her mother’s death - but the blood on her hands reminded him of his question.

“You mother tell you ‘bout fish soul?”

“Boy… Ain’t nobody studying de soul of fish.” Her voice had that wearied tone it sometimes adopted when talking to Boy and the new girl who ran the facility, with her clipboard and ponytail.

“But, if fish have soul, how you can jus’ kill it?”

“Soul or no soul Boy, fish is food.” She picked up the head, the tail; the internal fish-refuse and threw it all into the ocean. She leaned over to wash her hands in the salt water. Boy moved forward when she disappeared for a moment and found a small lump of blue-purple flesh. He picked it up, and sized it in his palm. It was coated in a thick layer of fish-blood.

“Dis de fish heart?” He asked when she resurfaced.

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“… Yes.” “Fish do have soul den!”

“Just cause fish have a heart? You know palm trees have hearts Boy?” “Not real hearts though. Fish have a real heart- see?” He held the bluish lump up for her inspection. She didn’t look at it.

“What make dat heart real boy, maybe palm heart is a real heart- fish heart fake.” She was staring at the pool of blood before her; interspersed with fish scales- she scraped her knife back and forth through the filth, “Maybe all our hearts fake, maybe only palm trees have a soul den!”

Boy didn’t listen to her; he was fixated on the heart in the middle of his outstretched palm.

“If fish have souls Boy, den why it can’t be in the scales, in the eyes, in the tail? Is the tail that push the fish through the water.”

Boy studied the small organ in his hand, “Is like you can still see fish-soul in it…” He whispered to himself.

“What about gills boy…what about… de fin! Why the heart so important!”

Boy glanced up. A long shadow fell against her brow and dripped down blackening out her nose, her lips. Her eyes were rimmed with water.

“Boy sometimes hearts is overused, hear me? Overused.”

“In school they teach us that heart does keep you alive.”

“I know that boy, you think just cus I ain’t go school I can’t see that?”

“No, if it keep you alive, it must keep you soul inside.”

“No boy, soul has got to be more than dat. Got to be something profound, right? Like God squat down and breathe right inside of you and me.” She pursed her lips and exhaled, mimicking creation. But her eyes weren’t smiling, they were still dead.

“That not right at all…” Boy said his voice low.

“It is written Boy.” Boy’s face had creased up, but then relaxed under some fierce internal self-will. His eyes melted at the corners, he began to cry silently- with just his eyes. Woman shifted uncomfortably.

“What wrong boy?”

“My grandmother say heart contains de soul- what if she wrong?”

“She ever cut open fish belly boy? She ever see the soul of fish in this?” She pointed with her knife towards the drying film of blood, “Maybe the fish soul is in the water boy, maybe the fish soul is in the seaweed dem eat… What wrong with thinkin’ dat?”

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“My father couldn’t swim.”

“What dat have to do with anything boy? Plenty people can’t swim.”

“Where his soul is if he wasn’t in de water? He ain’t had no scales neither…” Boy began to rub his thighs, up and down, his eyes distant, dark horizons. “She say when my father get his chest cut open, that she did see his soul leave out through his heart when it stop beating. She say that whenever I ask ‘bout him,” His voice began to crack “…So I figure fish-soul in de same place.”

Woman stopped scraping at the blood. She looked down at what she’d done; the bright, spread stain had dripped in between the crevices of the pier. She dropped the knife.

“Boy throw dat heart into de sea.”

Boy shook his head furiously.

“You don’t see boy? You find fish-soul after all. Now let it loose in the ocean, let the ocean have de… soul.”

Boy slid his hand out over the water; he slackened his palm and felt the organ run down the length of his fingers. He caught it in the well of the tip-most knuckles in his right hand. He paused, took a breath, and loosened his knuckles. The heart fell. It bobbed for a brief moment, and was sucked down. Woman leaned over the water with him, and together they watched the line of breakers that buried the fish-soul. She covered his hand with hers.

That night, with the fish blood darkening his fingernails, he crept to the edge of the cliff above the bay. The full moon was rising just behind the lighthouse; he scrunched his left eye shut and pressed his thumb over the moon, to see which was bigger. Boy stretched out his index finger and watched as it covered up the entire horizon. He drew his finger back from his face and was amazed at how much of the sea he could make disappear. His thumb was the size of the moon, his index finger an entire ocean. Boy put out his pinkie and measured the distance between the sea and the moon. It was a single knuckle wide. He knew that just beyond the moon was heaven.

So his father, swirling in the ocean with fish-soul, with all souls, would get there soon. He was sure of it. It was just a knuckle wide.

Circling the Blemish “Again?”

I looked up and into the tiny pair of feet that wrapped around Anne’s waist. I wiped my brow, and pulled at one palm-sized foot.

‘Ben loves it!’ Ben started crying then, ‘c’mon big guy, you don’t like daddy’s shiny Vauxhall?’

Anne stepped from me, and wiped the boy’s foot with her white apron. There was a small rectangular window in the kitchen, and having gone back inside, she peered out at me- her mouth tight.

I rubbed the chamois twice round the rim of the can. I inspected the wax coating, pressed some of it off. I buffed the door, slow, even circles.

There was a small spot, about a thumbnail across. Wax, chamois, slow, even circles- nothing. It wouldn’t rub off. I persisted, the circles concaved. I began to wipe haphazardly. I breathed.

Slow, even circles, increasingly more concentric.

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Sweat dripped down my brow; I passed the back of my hand across my forehead. The dark grey spot remained. I turned to the kitchen window; the tight smile had elevated to watch more closely.

‘Fuck!’ Wax had dripped into my eye. I glanced up, through the single opened right eye; the corners of that mouth had curled up at the sides.

‘Haven’t you already done that spot?’

‘Fuck!’ I yelled again, my eye fixed on her.

‘Stop being disgusting, there’s Ben.’ The mouth formed the words slowly, and then turned, leaving nothing but a shock of blonde as her hair filled the frame.

I applied more wax to the chamois, careful to remove any excess, and returned to the blemish.

The royal blue shone in the single hanging light of the garage. I circled the cancer. Left. Right.

Left. Right- nothing. I threw down the chamois.

It was so warm, I pulled off my shirt; my chest was layered in nervous sweat. I wiped my index finger along the rim of the can, and leant in. I began to dig at the spot with my finger.

‘Look at you.’

She didn’t exist, the spot was retreating. I was so close. The spot morphed into two tiny people, she and Ben. I rubbed harder; the paint broke and chipped away. She gripped my right shoulder, applied the entire weight behind those thin fingers and that tight smile. I fell. I lay there.

I could feel each rise and collapse of my chest; hear my heart, tall and violent. Against the wide, white garage door, she looked childlike. I could pick her up, like Ben, and put her on my lap. She crossed her arms, her shoulders pressed in. Her body betraying her will, but for that tight mouth.

I realized then, the truth of it. ‘You scratched the car.’

‘Of course I didn’t…. I don’t drive this thing.’ She was caught off guard.

‘No, you did, didn’t you!’ I stood.

‘I told you- no.’

The distance between us was souring. Suddenly a compost heap, our words were falling in among themselves, to be decayed, the nutrients drawn out, leaving nothing but the shit.

‘I don’t believe you!’

‘Look at you.’

‘Stop saying that!’

‘Shirtless, covered in grease, babbling.’

‘Is that why you screwed him?’

‘Yes.’ I rested my head back. There it was. The whole truth.

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André Springer Birthnight “Would you like a glass of wine?” Jamie asked Terrance as he finished off his burger.

It was a nice fine dining restaurant she had invited him to. Jamie had just finished eating her pan seared salmon and mash with grilled vegetables. She wasn’t even bothered that he had ordered a burger, she just smiled and shook her head.

“Are you sure? I thought you were trying to save?”

“It’s a special night, so one glass would be nice.” She smiled as she got the waiters attention and ordered it.

“Here’s to a wonderful night and many more to come! Cheers!”

Terrance loved red wine and the fact that she paid for it for him was a hint of good things to come. It’s not every day you turn twenty-five, a quarter century and he appreciated the gesture.

“Are you ready to leave J?” “So soon? Don’t you want to sit a little longer and talk for a bit?”

“Well actually I wanted to take you for a drive and we can talk as we drive.”

He got up and held her chair as she stood up. With her hair down and a simple thin necklace with pendant, she looked beautiful tonight. It was uncanny the way that she always looked so good without out making all the effort he saw other women making and failing miserably.

As they walked out, Terrance looked at her figure as she walked in front of him. She walked confidently in her silver four inch heels but she seemed oblivious to the attention she got as she left. The red dress fit her like it was made for her and her alone. Her full breasts caught the eyes as the neckline was low, showing the swell of them and as she walked and her hips moved, she made that dress charm all those who looked at her.

The rain had fallen earlier and the lingering moisture on the car glistened under the parking lot lights. He had worked really hard for the past three years to pay for it. It was simple, black with regular tires but he had put in the extra cash to modify the engine to his liking. It wasn’t that he was interested in what other people thought of it either, he just loved the speed and the mechanics involved in making his car even faster. He was shaking his head as he unlocked the doors and opened her door for her and she smiled sweetly. He could see she was having a good time with him and as she sat down and lifted her smooth, long and naturally thick legs into the car, he knew tonight could only get better. She looked around at the tan leather interior and ran her hands along the dash smiling at him.

“This is a nice car Terry, it feels so powerful when you move off but you always seem to be holding it back like an animal just waiting to be free” 82

Wendy Burke

Pitching Marbles Ain't Easy.

"Keep from round those hard ears children next door, you hear me. You does bring the devil on my doorstep far too often." I heard my mother say to my youngest sister as she readied herself to head to her birthplace in the Farm Road.

That's where we had all come from originally, except for Lil Evadney or Vadnie as I called my youngest sister.

What were my parents thinking with that ole' time name I would never know.

"Yes Maah , I gine listen! " Gine? That's not a word. Your reply should be 'Yes Yummy I will obey'. This child, this child.

Lord give me grace!”

I saw my mother take her hat off the rack and adjust it as she put it on, “Jeffrey is in charge of things, listen to him because he has my permission to share lashes”.

With that she was up the gap at a gallop with her rambunctious bottom and hips rolling as if to the beat of a shango drum.

Mum believed in a belt. I didn’t like it that much but with the things Vadnie got up to, you never had much of a choice. It was only Vadnie and I at home, the other four siblings were old enough to go about their own business.

I could hear her from my room upstairs, dragging the chair from the kitchen table to the back door to unlock it.

“Vadnie, are you okay?”

“Yes Jeffrey.”

I counted down, five, four…one,.. I looked through my bedroom window to see her climbing over the paling into the alley with something under her arm.

It had to be the marbles she kept hidden under the empty rabbit hutch.

Vadnie was not interested in the dolls which my older sisters and brothers gave her, nor was she interested in the books or TV shows.

Mummy had her Saturday ritual and so did Vadnie.

She used to go and play marble pool with some boys from different blocks in the housing area. I didn't know them really, I only ever met them after Vadnie would complain to me for them or their parents came to my mother to complain for her.

She was a sore loser and whenever she lost, the game always ended in some sort of battle, either of words or rocks. She was a little cuss bird and could throw a rock straight as an arrow or fight with every limb. She was what we called “peenie-weenie”, could not reach the back door lock without help but yet climbed the paling most skillfully. This Saturday’s game was in the Terrace. which was just a five minute walk. I could hear them boasting about who's glassy was better, and who had ugly gougies and then Vadnie. "I clearing out all the Milkies today and the gougies 83

too". I laughed to myself because I knew it was possible, either by fair or foul means.

Ten minutes had not passed before I heard " you is such a stinking lil cheater".

"Cheater, me a cheater? The cheater is yah stinking fare picking mother! " There was no doubt it was Vadnie. Where this child learnt these things I did not know. I was a teenager and can’t remember behaving like that at her age. My sisters called her disgusting, disgraceful and dirty ; she never took a shower for longer than two minutes.

Mind you, Mummy and Daddy never heard her behave this way, they only had the neighbors’ children's complaints to go on.

"Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Lil Trevor trying to beat me.” As I looked out the window, there she was scaling the paling to run inside. This Lil Trevor was behind her. I recognized him, he was the son of one of the many ladies of the night in the area. His mother was best known for skinning up her clothes, pulling down her underwear and telling the person she was cussing out how and where to suck.

As he started to gain on her she snatched up one of my mother’s cats which was laying in the yard and threw it at the boy. The poor cat, probably on its ninth life began to make a most awful sound and so too did the boy.

"Oh rasshole, that's a black cat, get it off me get it off me, I hate cats".

This allowed Vadnie to make good her escape with more marbles than what she left with. Cat and boy were both afraid, the animal was clawing him all over and he was spinning like a whirl-a-gig.

I sped down the stairs to rescue the poor child. I knew this would not end well and Mummy would place the blame squarely on me.

I washed him off with the yard hose as his face, arms and neck were badly scratched and bleeding. I heard a menacing laugh from my bedroom window; it was Vadnie, she was in my room looking down laughing at the boy.

"Who the france stink now?” she said.

I screamed, “ Vadnie.!!! You have to stop these damn fights every single Saturday. You are going to make these people beat me or our mother. You are too small for so much strife. ".

The expression on her face showed no remorse. I sent the boy home as I knew that within a few hours our mother would be back.

The sun had gone down and I had the little nuisance standing in the corner because if I had hit her she would probably need a doctor. I was fed up of her nonsense. She was a lovely child but she, Saturday and Satan seemed to be synonymous. The rest of the week she was good, especially Sundays when she went to church with us in the morning and then tagged along in the 84

evening when the rest of us attended Church Lads and Church Girls Brigade.

Then I heard the commotion. Eudine or Moonbat as she was nicknamed, called out my mother's name as she met her on the street. "Sister Burke, Sister Burke, look at this shite here. Look what that Vadnie do to my Lil Trevor face!"

My mother replied, "Who are you addressing Eudine? I don't speak to you like that. Curb your language in Jesus name. " "Jesus my big ass. Jesus tell that lil bitch you got there to throw de cat pon Lil Trevor?" " Watch what you say about my sister, woman. " "Jeffrey! " "Sorry mum."

"Hold on Eudine. Evadney come here now. Come here!”. " Yes mum, is there something wrong?"

"Did you make the cat scratch this boy?

"Mummy he ran into the yard behind me and the same time the cat jumped down from the hutch and landed on his head."

I laughed aloud, not at the boy’s pain but at the drastic character change my sister had made.

Mummy gave me a look.

By this time Moonbat was cussing louder.

“What were you doing outside Vadnie and why were you playing with him? How did he come to be in our yard Evadney?" Questions galore, but no answers.

My mother stormed from the sidewalk and came indoors for George, the thick leather strap we all knew.

Mummy was a beat talker, every word was a lash.

"How many times I tell you not to pitch when the Saturday morning come. Look at this boy face! " As the lashes connected with my little sister, Eudine and Lil Trevor watched the public flogging being done for their satisfaction.

I remained outside. The snot was running down Vadnie’s face along with the tears. I was mixed on the matter, I prayed that her little body would not collapse with the lashes but I also felt it fair since I remember what she shouted from my bedroom window about the marbles.

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That night was misery for me too, since when Mummy calmed down she started to quarrel with me about irresponsibility and allowing the bad elements from the neighbourhood to be around, yadah, dadah, dadah. I tuned out. That night mummy prayed extra hard and long.

Her room was next to mine and the girls all shared the biggest bedroom.

“Lord and father to you I commit my life this day. I live for you father but why does the devil test me so. Why does this child behave this way Lord. Take the wickedness away from Vadnie.

Make her a better child, fill her with the spirit of good over evil, Amen.”

My mother always prayed for all of us but tonight the hurt and pain in her voice let me know that the day’s happenings had really taken a toll on her.

I felt badly for having let her down.

“Mum,” I knocked on her door and she did not come to open. “I’m sorry about today. It will be okay. Just be patient with her, it will be okay.”

Sunday morning and we were all getting ready for church. All except Vadnie.

My sisters did not even ask where she was, they just ate breakfast and fixed each other’s hair.

My mother started up the stairs to look for her. She looked under the bed to see if she was hiding but no one was there.

The next place to look was in the yard, she often went out there and played with the cats when she wanted to delay going to church. No sign of her.

A look of worry came to my mother’s face. “I’m going to call your father and let him know.

Meanwhile, you children change your clothes and let’s divide up and search the neighbourhood and talk to her friends.”

“Look, what is that on the Bible?” my sister Angela asked.

My mother snatched up the piece of paper from the Bible which was kept on the coffee table.

She read it aloud “Dear mummy and daddy. I know you don’t like the devil and that is what you called me last night. I do not belong in this house and I will go where I do. To hell. It was nice being here but I do not want to see George anymore. Tell Jeffrey I will miss him. Tell my sisters nothing. I’m sorry about Lil Trevor and that Moonbat cursed you. Bye. Vadnie.”

Mother raised both her hands to the ceiling and the tears started to roll down her cheeks.

“The licks yesterday were not enough,” shouted Cecile. She never showed Vadnie any affection.

Come, we have to go look for her I said. No one had changed as yet so we all put on slippers and divided up into the avenues. My mother was inside trying to reach daddy at work; he worked some Sundays. The first person I saw was Lil Trevor, his face covered with plasters and gentian violet to help with the healing. I went to him.

“I’m sorry about yesterday Trevor, my sister can be bad at times. I hope you face heals up properly. You didn’t happen to see Evadnie this morning did you?’

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“No and I don’t want to but my mother tell me just now before I leave home that she saw her in a pink church dress and she could really stop home. Anyhow, I going by my uncle for breakfast.”

After hearing this I knew I had to go to Moonbat’s house. I didn’t want to be cursed but I had no choice, if she saw my sister I had to question her.

“Good morning Eudine. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions, you is the fucking police. Carry yah long dose of salts poorgreat ass from at my door,” she shouted through the window.

“Please, I understand you saw Evadney this morning. We don’t know where she is. I need your help please.”

“Look I here busy and you disturbing me,” she said as she opened the door.

I saw a man on the chair fixing his pants. Most likely a customer. She was wearing her skirt pulled up over her breasts.

“Did you see where my sister went?”

“Jeffrey, she passed here round minutes to seven in a pink church dress but I noticed that she was not wearing any shoes. When she saw me she started running in the direction of the beach hill. I don’t know after that.”

“Thank you, and sorry about the interruption.”

She tried to smile but couldn’t, her mouth was too twisted from the rum stroke she had about three years ago. This only made it worse as she was not a beauty queen to start with.

Anyhow, I forgot about her and her face and rushed toward the beach hill. Was she silly enough to go near the water, would Vadnie harm herself. Did she cross the road safely. All these things were racing through my mind and I started to run. I had to find her, naughty or nice she was my sister.

As I approached the beach I saw a crowd of people gathered near the water, my heart began racing, dear Lord and father no. I bolted toward the crowd and pushed through. I saw something pink on the ground, it was Vadnie’s dress. I started to hold my head, the people became blurry. I kept pushing to the front of the crowd. There she was, soaked and in her underwear holding the head of an elderly man.

“You will be okay. Just bite down on this stick, it will be okay.”

It was Vadnie. I recognized the old man too. It was Bernancy, one of the many mental hospital outpatients whom my little sister had befriended.

I rushed to her side, “What happened? Why did you leave home like that? You scared us all.”

“She’s very brave, she stopped his epileptic fit,” a man shouted from the crowd.

Then I heard sirens in the background, the ambulance was there. The crowd parted and they came and lifted the man on the stretcher.

The paramedic looked at Vadnie, “Are you okay little one?”

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“Yes I’m fine, just wet from pulling him out of the water.”

I hugged my sister tightly and lifted her. I stooped and picked her dress up.

When I returned home the police and my father were there. I brought her into the house. My mother took her from me and told my father to go get a towel.

“Well mam, I guess you don’t need us anymore,” the officer said and left the house.

My sisters said nothing but the look of relief was on their faces.

My mother held her and kissed her “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that you were a devil. I love you Vadnie. Don’t ever think that we don’t want you.”

“Mummy, I remember that the Bible said water cleanses you of your sins so I went and dipped seven times this morning so that I would not be a devil anymore.” Everyone started to laugh.

Charles Huggins Guarantee A deep sadness that defines the terms of a miracle whose guarantee has expired.

And when throughout the interstices of thought, weaned of its own breath, that sadness has seeped, you turn your face to the wall and weep the sharp and bitter tears that glisten like crushed glass; each tear a shard that leaves your face dry as an implacable glare, but only you see the shreds those shards have made of your hope.

You ignore the rhetorical “how come?”

But it's too late now. Too late.

For the priest has mumbled his mass and left water stains on your coffin.

Friends have dutifully sat while your imperfections were glossed and qualities you lacked troubled the stifling air.

They wept because death 88

does that to you and soon enough to them. Still with your face to the wall you see a legacy, signed by your wanton will, abandoned to thread the barren places, and no sign of life to shade a desolate wish, not even a mirage of a sliver of green; just you and your guarantee expired.

Poui Oh for the joy that lifts the fallen leaves and casts heavenward; that travels down through murky alleys, sees it all, yet soars above the stench, shakes the choking dust, feels not the suffocating, but the light that shines from once-dulled eyes, scattering laughter, like yellow poui blooming; oh for the joy that's love.

Cut eye Only a Caribbean woman cut eye can draw blood, and the man who get it must decide whether he is going to bleed then or later, but bleed he will, though he knows that at the back of the look is a strength that has brought an entire world into being, bearing a life from which many have fled and unlike Lot's wife have never looked back but those who remain and those within it still don't know 89

how after all that time of having bled of having borne generation after generation after generation my caribbean woman continues to nurture and to love as tenderly and as fully as that very first cut eye.

Tammi Browne-Bannister No Frills, No Lace Outside the dowdy establishment my eyes penetrated the ocean, the Atlantic side of my island to be exact. Even the waves staggered toward me. All this happened before my mind drifted outside of itself and before the world seemed to slow down to match my mood. After that I heard nothing but my own wandering thoughts and saw nothing but past mistakes, panning by each other like movie slides. When he called, I felt the wind drying the warm tears streaming down my face.

“Pardon me, Ms. Ramharack. Would you like more time to think things through?” The director of Rolling Hills craned his neck from behind the glass doors. His voice trailed off with hesitation and possibly in concern for what he saw. Can only imagine how gummy and puffy my eyes were. But they were nothing compared to his dark circled ones. If I swallowed, I’m sure he wouldn’t detect so much as the heaviness in my chest or the ache in my voice.

“No, I’m coming now.” I swiped my embarrassment away, wiping my hands on my pants while he stood there waiting for me. I turned to join him in that instant and pitched forward, missing my step because of how abruptly my thoughts had ended and at the fact too that his dead voice raised the hairs on my arms. Then again my body could have been responding to the feel of the wind in my eyes or the coldness of remembrance. The director steadied me with a quick hand.

It was icy cold against my skin. His breath touched my neck and a strong ginger scent passed through my nose. He held on to me until I could support my lean frame again. I cleared my throat and smooth back my hair. He said nothing to me. And I said nothing to him. His face remained expressionless but his eyes smiled into mine. It was as if he understood and was trying to comfort the awkwardness I was experiencing.

I followed him inside. The director’s walk was ceremonious not in haste, perhaps from years of practise. He carried one hand lying in the other at the back of his buttocks and he went along with his head bowed. There were three pedestals on each side of the main area with tall marble vases holding long white lilies. The room smelled of Florida water and of lilies. The combination was nauseating. We stopped at his office. He put his hand out, ushering me inside still with his head bowed but I did see a slight smile on his face. There was one rectangular glass

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table with light pink lilies in a porcelain vase, a telephone off to one side, a swivel chair behind and one wooden chair with a padded seat in front.

“Please, sit down,” the director said. “This must be overwhelming for you-” “Yes,” I said. “I’ve never had so many options in any given day in my life. Thank you for understanding. I didn’t mean to run off like that. And I never meant to snap at you either. It’s just that all this is new to me. You pushed the catalogue in my hands as if it had all the pleasantness of a department store. There are so many things to be considered and so little time.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way. It wasn’t my intention to scare you. But, have you come to a decision?” he said, pinching the skin on his throat.

“Before we begin I want to get a few things cleared. I was never a promiscuous person and I’ve never stuck any needles in my veins that weren’t prescribed. I’m not experimental and ave never had a blood transfusion.”

There were beads of sweat on the director’s forehead and his gaze bounced from my stern face to my arms which were folded tight before my chest. “We’re not here to judge anyone, Ms. Ramharack. At Rolling Hills, comfort in your time of need, is our utmost priority.”

“Comfort doesn’t matter to the dead. Only the living cares and they want to know who takes care of their needs when their seconds on earth have expired. With that being said, what I have to say is important for the services which you will eventually provide.”

The director nodded, leaning forward on the table. And I gathered my thoughts for the story I was going to tell.

I’d always dreamed of having a home with a stunning view of the Atlantic. The breeze against my face and body didn’t matter as much as the salty atmosphere and the rolling waves that tumbled and crumbled and fizzled out at a frequency that mimicked life at times. Raul Basmati wasn’t the ideal man that filled my head with romantic occupations. He failed all expectations and; was less than the image I’d conjured many years ago in my teens, while reading Anne of Avonlea. Didn’t every girl wish for a love interest like Gilbert? And now as a woman of forty, closer to menopause than I was to any God, I still pined for such a scenario. Nonetheless, I settled for – settled down with and endured many years waiting with abated breath for my husband to change. Raul didn’t have much going for him when we first met. But I fell in love with the fact that he was the antithesis of who I am. Back then my face was set like plaster of Paris to any man’s advances. Raul was different, however; friendly and pleasant and easy to talk to without me feeling as if he were imposing. He didn’t have to try to get me to like him. Doing so came naturally. All the seriousness of life that stood on my face and any reluctance I had melted away and soon I found that I had become more accepting and accommodating - all because of this man. Nothing stopped us from falling for each other; not even the fact that I was successful in my profession while he was a struggling artiste, living at the time, from note to note.

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After three months we got married and jumped right into starting a family. My practise in Neonatology, afforded us a lavish lifestyle that more than met our every need. Life, on the other hand, as we moved two years onwards, couldn’t be afforded. Our terrible two’s came with anxiety and fear, regrets and shame, withdrawal periods from each other and long bouts without communication.

Raul became adamant about the idea of adopting and I became depressed. The relationship which was once strong and; filled with mutual respect and desire, faded. In response, both of us immersed ourselves in our careers. This time Raul became successful. Soon, he was booked for music festivals and tours six months or more in a year. And I settled for any distraction to compensate for infertility, to save what was left of our marriage and keep the years rolling onward, at least. I was president on many charitable boards, did volunteer work at churches and food banks, and, I have worked at the Youth Intervention Centre, helping teens cope with a range of issues from peer pressure to drug abuse.

Even though there was no hope of a miracle materializing from my womb, Raul and I kept our romance going. However, that too, became non-existent with time. We live this sham until there was no point in any one of us suffering longer. We parted amicably just for the sake of keeping the peace and moving on without a nastier end.

Since then I’ve never once thought of the Gilbert I could’ve had. I didn’t have the resolve to look for him nor did I give any other man a chance. In hindsight I guess I should’ve seen where my life was going. My nan once said to me when I was thirty and had made my first million, “when ram-goat happy, it piss at yuh doh.” She said it in her Guyanese twang and I found it so amusing that the laughter brought tears to my eyes. How quick we are to forget? We; Women: If only I had remembered. I would’ve been more vigilant of the signs. There was a plethora of signs that I was all too willing to overlook and unconscionable mistakes that I was too hasty to forgive. ****

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“In growing up I had insecurities that I was never sure about. The only certainty was that I saw those same flaws manifested in my mother. When I realized that I could become that passiveaggressive, vindictive, jealous woman, I took personal development courses to strengthen my will. It was a gradual process but those classes helped to produce not only the successful woman you’re staring at today but a confident force to be reckoned with. There was no father to dote on a daughter but, a mother whose purpose was to tear down my achievements with pessimism and negativity. I had no arguments – none that were substantial anyway – to counter my decision to go out on my own. So when I was out of college and gained employment as a paralegal at Baron and Cobalt-” “The, Baron and Cobalt? The most prestigious law firm?” the director gasped.

“Yes,” I felt the heat in my cheeks and forehead. I nodded, too. “Baron and Cobalt specializing in media and entertainment contracts, real estate and tort law. When I landed that job, I moved out. I had the verve for any challenge. My boss, Q.C. Dojn Baron, loved how quick I was at learning and was impressed with my enthusiasm. But after two years, I became bored. The hours I put in didn’t give me much of a social life and the fact that I earned a handsome reward wasn’t enough to quench my thirst for advanced learning. I could’ve chosen a more challenging type of law to pursue but I think I was more or less motivated by an ad I saw on television. It was of the new medical university that had opened its doors in Pinelands. It seems like yesterday when I saw the graduate and post-graduate studies scrolling up the screen.

My mouth watered at Paediatrics and I did a major in Neonatology to involve obstetrics. That’s when I left Baron and Cobalt.

I absorbed my studies without so much as going to a party. I did go to the movies now and then but the party scene just wasn’t for me. It was a long road filled with stress, endless nights and burning eyes but I managed to graduate at the top of my class. Mother was at the ceremony but I don’t know what for. All she said at the end – after looking at my lean figure and the dark circles under my eyes, was, “You should’ve gone to law school, Sandy.”

The director shook his head in disbelief.

“From there I immersed myself in my work; first taking a job with a specialist on the island then in private practise. And the good thing about being a diligent worker is that people never forget. My old boss at Baron and Cobalt made it possible for me to gain patients through his firm. As a result, my practise grew and so did my pockets.”

“Your story is quite a remarkable one but-” 93

“Let me get to the gist,” I interrupted the director.

I sat up in the hard-back chair, rested my hands in my lap and concentrated on the hardwood floors of the establishment.

“I didn’t tell you my business just for a boasting session, to appear haughtier than thou nor am I pretending to be what I’m not. My story is as real as that benign mole on your upper lip.”

Well, now, the director sat back in his chair. He crossed one arm to his stomach, resting his elbow on top and covered his mouth with the back of his palm.

“I won’t take much more of your time with some infinite diatribe. I just need you to hear me out. Listen to every word. It’s important to the care you’ll provide.

About ten years into my private practise I met my ex-husband. Before him I never trusted any man but the ones who facilitated at med school and of course my former employers at Baron and Cobalt. I have much to be grateful for in those men. My ex, however, was a different prose altogether. He was charming, unpretentious and talented.

I couldn’t give him children. At first we thought he was the problem but a thorough examination would reveal that I was biologically incapable.”

My voice began to shake. My cheeks quivered and the smile I showed to hide my shame must have looked grave because the director lowered his gaze to the floor. When he lifted his eyes, I could see them glistening.

‘May I have a drink of water, please,’ I asked.

The director picked up the phone and dialled a number. Soon after, a portly woman with smiling eyes, walked in with a serving tray.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said to me in a gentle tone. She handed over a few pieces of tissue but I looked away from this woman. Presumptuous of her yet courteous, I thought.

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She poured water into a tumbler in a ceremonious fashion, making sure not to spill anything on the table top that separated the director from me. She passed the glass of water to me and as she did so I could see her eyes focusing on my shoes and not my face. The woman poured another glass for the director. “Thank you,” I said to her wide back and she nodded as she left us.

“Raul and I tried having a normal relationship after we received word of not being able to conceive. But eventually we had to face reality and that we did. You see some people get married for love, sex and other reasons pertinent to the marriages’ longevity. My husband married me not only for sex but for the sake of having children, I guess. And all the time my Nan thought it might have been for money.” I tried to laugh but my chin trembled instead.

There was nothing to do but put the glass to my mouth and swallow hard.

“Of course we had plenty of cash between my practise and his music business. He enjoyed it for the both of us because when I learned of my infertility, I did nothing but make myself unavailable to him. At times though I felt submitted but love-making always came off as nothing but an obligation. And that’s why I’m here today.”

I found myself staring into space behind the director’s chair and for a long while. He sat there with his hands clasped on top his stomach, looking on in concern.

“We take pride in the professionalism of our team,” the director reached forward to hold my hands which were unsteady.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I moved my hands away before he could touch them. “The long and short of it is – my husband had a high sex drive. I was no longer enough. That pencil in his pants – (and I say pencil with reason) – turned rotten. And he used it on the hordes of ewes he pencilled into the time he owed me as a spouse. He’s dead and buried now and I’m awaiting my three months sentencing – the time I have left according to my doctor. Love and marriage is such a bitch. Still, I can’t afford to be bitter over things I have no control of. There is no time for that. Raul did love me till death. He loved me so much that he left me dying of AIDS.” “I’m sorry,” the director said in a regretful tone. **** “I’m not afraid of dying. What I am though, is disgusted with the processes of death and what happens after we die. Like I’ve said before it doesn’t matter to the dead who’s taking care of their needs but it does matter to the living. All my life I’ve had a female doctor to take care of my needs and no man but my ex-husband has seen me naked. Therefore, I want to be taken care of by a woman.

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My hair has always been as you see it loose without oils or gels or sprays. No jewellery.

I won’t need them. I don’t wear make-up. Keep my face as simple as you see it now. Bathe me in lavender water with a touch of peppermint oil. Put on my favourite white sundress. No shoes on my feet. Don’t set my face with a false smile. I want to look natural. Don’t worry about this catalogue. I have no need for it. There’s to be no open or closed casket; in fact no casket at all.

I have no liking for worms of any kind so all I want is a marble urn covered in Jatrophas to hold my ashes.

No death announcements by radio or print or by word of mouth. No cameras and don’t allow anyone to take my picture. I want a Cliffside plot with an overview of the Atlantic. No headstone just a small gold plaque with my initials and a Barbados Pride standing over it. There are no relatives to mourn. My mother died from misery and my grandmother died a saint. Mr. Dojn Baron and my secretary will oversee that my requests at Rolling Hills have been followed to the T. The necessary papers will be sent to you shortly from Baron and Cobalt. So mister director, I have given you a long speech today. Remember it and deliver a brief eulogy when the three of you stand at my graveside.”

Cher Corbin Feeling The Groove Bob bob bobbing head nod nod nodding sway smooth feel the base. line slow it down tic tick tickle the keys maestro good to go gone! bring me up swirl me a. round and a-round and switch it up now!

Continue con-tin-u (o) us. keep it there 96

fade it out rock steady! moving on moving out brassman brass head bob. bob-bing bop. bop-ping weav(e) in (g) there fade it out! bring it back Sul. try this time I am blue bluer than blue notes sad drip drip drippin(g) tears on me. light cymbal che-che-che-che cheaper cuss- I? on you vibrate un(d)tangle my moods sweet trance smooth sensual groove rock me gently rock me slowly take it easy take it easy heart beats. smiles take me back back-back-in to time Mr. Piano97

man change it out now beat it ! beat it from the core repeat it repeat it again and again and again now bring me back back to my flavor take your time yea its fam. i-liar fam-i-liar yes as yester. day make me smile thinking sweet urgent soft hot passion yes! Oh yes! just there come on!

Bob‌.wail for me no lies.

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CONTRIBUTORS Tammi Browne-Bannister: an Antiguan and a Barbadian. Her short fiction has been awarded numerous times by NIFCA and will be featured in the anthology, Winning Words. Her work has also been published in Anansesem and St. Somewhere Journal.

Wendy Burke: is a forty-something year old mother of three who has been writing for a living as a journalist, T.V. producer and student. She is finally taking up her pen to write for pleasure.

Kevin Collymore: was a member of the Cave Hill creative writing class.

Cher Corbin: Barbadian mother of two, a NIFCA award winner and the first forensic scientist in Barbados, now the Director of the Forensic Sciences Centre, Office of the Attorney General.

Her work has been published in St. Somewhere Online Literary Journal, Blackberry:The Magazine, and will be featured in three upcoming anthologies – Bamboo Press –She Sex, The National Cultural Foundation’s – Winning Words and Senseisha – An Anthology on the sensuality of the Barbadian Woman. She is working on two novellas and has published an anthology of poetry, My Soul Cries.

Ahmad Desai: a former member of the Cave Hill creative writing class, now an MPhil student at Cave Hill.

Charles Huggins: Born in Nevis, formative years spent in the Caribbean before migrating to the great white north where my introduction to the diaspora drove me to poetry as an existential necessity. After university in Toronto returned to the Caribbean, helped to found The Bahamas Writers Association. Work has appeared in journals Kunapipi and Tongues of The Ocean; anthologies Junction, Lignum Vitae and From t he Shallow Seas. Presently lives in Toronto.

Ydahlia Jones: A 22 year old Belizean member of the Cave Hill creative writing class, inspired by her Caribbean experience.

Pauliino Lehto: a Finnish literature student pursuing a MA in the Master's Programme in Narrative Theory and Textuality in the University of Tampere. She spent the academic year 2013-2014 in the University of West Indies, Cave Hill as a study abroad student. In the future she sees her herself working in the book publishing field.

Mark McWatt: Professor Emeritus of West Indian Literature at Cave Hill, where he taught for more than thirty years and still teaches Creative Writing: Poetry, and a founding editor of Poui.

He has published three collections of poetry: Interiors (1989) The Language of Eldorado (1994) and The Journey to Le Repentir (2009). His collection of short fiction, Suspended Sentences, won the Casa de Las Americas Award and the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book in 2006.

Nancy Anne Miller: Nancy Anne Miller is a Bermudian poet. Her book Somersault is forthcoming from Guernica Editions(CA). Her poems have appeared in many journals in the UK, USA and the Caribbean. She has an M Litt in Creative Writing from University of Glasgow, is a MacDowell Fellow and teaches workshops in Bermuda.

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Lellawattee Manoo-Rahming: a Trinidadian Bahamian born in Trinidad and living in Nassau, The Bahamas where she is a practising Mechanical/Building Services Engineer. A poet, fiction writer, artist and essayist, Lelawattee’s work has appeared in numerous publications in The Bahamas, the Caribbean, Nicaragua, USA and Europe. Winner of the David Hough Literary Prize from The Caribbean Writer (2001); the Canute A. Brodhurst Prize for Short Fiction from The Caribbean Writer (2009); and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA) 2001 Short Story Competition. Has published poetry collections, Curry Flavour (2000), Immortelle and Bhandaaraa Poems (2011). Was shortlisted for the inaugural Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize for Fiction, in April, 2013.

Mark Ramsay: is studying Literatures in English at UWI, Cave Hill, where he was a member of the creative writing class. He won the 2012 Irving Burgie Award and his collection of short fiction won third place in the 2013 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Award.

Krishna Ramsumair: a former teacher, now a medical researcher, who hopes to one day write full time. He has an M.F.A. from U.W I. and is a former winner of a Cropper Foundation Fellowship. Currently working on a novel, he is looking for a publisher for his collection of short stories.

Maria Soledad Rodriguez: from the Rio Piedras campus of the University of Puerto Rico, has primarily taught and published on pan-Caribbean folk figures like Bobo Johnny and douens as well as women’s literature. She is currently working on poetry manuscripts in English and Spanish.

A-dZiko Simba: a writer, performer and storyteller. Her passion is in using these Creatorgifted talents to assist in uplifting Afrikan peoples in the Diaspora. She has most recently written for a year-long radio serial drama, Outa Road, currently broadcasting on Jamaica’s RJR radio station. A-dZiko’s CD , Crazy Lady Days, features poems accompanied by Afrikan percussion and flutes.

Obediah Smith: born on New Providence, the Bahamas, in 1954; has published 13 books of poetry in English. He has participated in writers’ workshops at University of Miami and University of the West Indies, Cave Hill and was Poetry Workshop facilitator for the 2009 Bahamas Writers Summer Institute. His poems, in English, are included in literary journals and anthologies throughout the Caribbean, in the USA and in England and, translated into Spanish, are included in anthologies in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and Spain. His fourteenth book, El amplio Mar de los Sargazos y otros poemas, was published in Costa Rica in 2011.

Barbara Southard: a retired professor of history at the Rio Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico has published extensively in the field of women’s history and gender studies, and is now writing historical fiction. Her short story ‘Heavy Downpour’, was published in Calabash (2008), ‘The Pinch of the Crab’, Poui: (Vol. X, 2009) and ‘Grandfather’s Portrait’ Cerebration (Issue 2, 2010). She is completing a novel about women’s lives in Puerto Rico in the 1990’s.

André Springer: a member of the Cave Hill Creative Writing class.

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