Excerpts
Lemonade
Your grandmother is on her deathbed now. She made it a long time ago. Which is to say it was made for her. Which really means she doesn’t want it but she’s going to lie down anyway. You prop her pillows for her, lace her lemonade with Demerol because she is dying and dying hurts …
Night Island
That was what they should have called it, thought Isabella, as she trudged behind Billy along the beach, phosphorescent plankton throwing off light in response to each footstep. Night for the color of the sand. Night for the hours they were awake there. Halfway to the mangroves, their flashlights, covered in red contact paper, caught …
Shake the Dark Out
Underneath, there was an ancient musicI underestimated so you could be minus and postRomance in our soul of things trundling aroundOld truths but not believing. Luck-seeking,We pretended we were young, but we were onlyFreak-making love-taking strangersShining up our contemplations, building new homesProfoundly not our own. Alone, my trope, is thisLingering over your major promises in …
Electric Rococo Recollections of Jam Tree Gully from Afar
From the upper southeast windowthe cross on the church is stark—light-globes mark its outline, contrastthe twilit harbour. It wants moreout of symmetry than is on offer. Tomorrow, the Guru is going overto Jam Tree Gully to clear the guttersof dead, dry leaves. They congestwithout style, embellish with urge,the pragmatism of making a growthmedium: in summer …
Notes from Havana
1. Today the first rest in a long time: lolling on the bed in theAC, thinking of sitting & laughing at dinner on the Plaza Vieja withP & E their second night here, first lightning, then thunder,then rain—of P passed out after dinner another night & RA in theliving room teaching E to salsa, & …
Limpopo
What a croc. This riveris the crooked line betweenrand/dollar. Neither is ours.We cannot even afford our own money. This river has caughtthe national disease, hunger.This river playsthe national pastime, hunger, like a champion.This river wears ournational dress, hunger, like a string of hip-beads.This river teems withcrocodiles. We cannot afford to house them in a parkthese …
The stones in your garden
The stones in your garden speak louder than the people passing bythey claim an ancestry that goes back to the first cavewhen two flintstones controlled fireand a pauper wind swept the brambles of an alphabet gone deaf Things being what they wereyou had only to grasp a stone in your hand to feel the planet’s …
On Staying Behind
to the advice her cousins sent, the older girl cousins, married, girls who left our village with their husbands.than two weeks if she’s lucky. not have her stay with me to starve. She leaves with no wealth. I see the strength profe de los estados uniThis woman has never known hunger. I saw her shock when …
On Leaving
I have testedmyself against her speed, My cousins go with me this morning, their dark hair glossy, so youngtheir shoulders. Their moth remain, grayed village elders,wooden statues of saints i I wear only what I have. I carry a blouse one aunt gave me,a friend’s old sandals for days when heat …