The sun squirts pepper-red in Willemstad.
its glow straightens creased ancestral promises from
bug-eaten-holes of the Queen Emma bridge.
in the smokeless rising of prayers purled with gold;
all obstacles are lowered b’neath the eyes of windows.
lift your scarred hands for a moment of opening—
not for the art of worship. at steep afternoon
my delicate pores rebel the slow intermittent wink
of burn. Karpata, cenotaph of Tula;
all roofs, all hieroglyphics are been torched—
consecrated by ordinary embers. perhaps this is
a fervent revelation that light twisting thru the carcass
of a cat can make bones breed flesh. my accent ache
in ripe suns. the sun-toothed-air hauls me for
new lands & i slip into familial tribes.
let the poem alone conceive i am the lost birth mark
engraved under a progenitor’s chin. the disbelieve hides
its nudity in the sleep of hills. the stubborn
stones silent & serious do not rebut the gospel
of recalcitrant storms; as if it is God who hid
pure grace in the dialect of obedience. b’hind rhyme
of the water a column of colored women
wring out acrid rhythms out of their bodies.
tongues tuck into stomachs to detect every rottenness;
every bile of melancholy. 1657, on the Bontekoe,
salt odor reminded us; the wonder of songs &
the closest detail to salvation. the waves could
ferry songs for nights. the pound— pam pound pam
of the atumpam before sea. it was the songs that made
the drums. slave songs had their own spirits lodged
on contours of immortal corals. this secret is not for you
to keep. the lump is for throats who have not yet witnessed
the indelible blood-clot on retina of the Caribbean sea.
