JESSIE
I miss the morning taste
of herb tea
in a styrofoam cup
and you still have me laughing
remembering how you called
the busy dumptrucks scuttling
beneath our sterile office highrise
"tipperbodies"
Jessie, I see you over the sink
washing this new cook's pots
filling and emptying the twin sinks
with all the patience
of the Jamaican tides
*********************************
ISLAND WOMEN
Every Christmas you return
to Jamaica, Barbados
Trinidad
stuffing plastic shopping bags
with diapers, records
and cosmetics
hand-plaited bags filled returning
with mangoes, rum, coconuts and
love
which fades so much more slowly
than a tourist's sunburn
*****************************
PLAYMATES
a true story in Barbados
the mother came home early
to find her baby daughter
playing with the viper.
She was kissing and caressing it
as it slithered
over her giggling body.
the mother fainted
when she awoke
neighbours filled the hole
with cement
the little girl died soon after
from a broken heart
************************
THE EVENING TOURISTS
The evening tourists
waist deep in the dusk
between sips watch the island boys
pulling the stubborn thick rope
past them down the breakwater
As we touch the beach
one finally realizes
that we are successfully
sharking
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