Take a peak (or two) at my poetry and photography.
Cantaloupe
I.
I am ten the first time Ma let me split
the skin of a cantaloupe without her.
My knee still bandaged & burning from
a fall I took on the playground that day.
While playing tag, a classmate pushes me
like she wants the ground to remember it.
I don’t push back. Tell my teacher instead
& declare I wish it was a half-day. When I
get home, I tell Ma I’m aching for sugar
& numbing. So she hands me a knife & I
lay the tough-skinned fruit on its side.
Cut the two shortest ends & watch them fall
like playing cards. I think back to the breaking.
Stand it upright to make it into a split-sun.
Ma offers to re-dress my wound in ointment.
I dig up & toss innards like they’re memories
I want to bury. There is no aloe vera here. Cut
until cantaloupe flesh resembles square-shaped
Lego bricks. Devour several slices before I
place the others to rest in our Tupperware.
II.
My sisters & I climb the plastic-adorned
couch in our living room. Mountains
of clothes & blankets all over the rug
for extra cushion. Today we dive into an ocean—
bellies full of fruit blessings & minds still
on fire from a story Ma told us about a Black girl
in Harlem who could fly like a bird. We want
to turn into dolphins & fly. We know we can wish this.
Feet steadied, hands on each other’s shoulders,
knees bent for the journey. There’s nothing like the thirst
of Black girls who believe in their own dreams.
Cantaloupe juice can only quench so much. We fly
& dive into the water we built. Bellies pointed up
& down as we lie with bodies transformed into wind.
Prayer to Èzili Dantò
In my dreams, I run across the ocean &
become more woman with each wave.
something like you. I fly bruiseless &
renewed by the blue suns. Assemblies
of mothers & daughters sing & laugh
big until we all fly hand-in-hand. We sweat
& become our own guava horizons. Every
coconut tree is a city that welcomes us.
No one tries to take the moon from our teeth.
In this world, we don’t have to lower our
heads or bend. Everywhere we go, so does
the water. Our hair shimmies at the clouds
& make songs with the wind. No rape,
no black eyes, no pockets or souls sucked
dry, no one to lead us away from this home.
Everything we can dream is blooming & true.
Watershed
I arrive at my father’s feet a dying
mapou tree. He covers his eyes with
mud while the goats feast on my fallen hair.
I hear my mother call for the Lord
to send just enough rain for our lungs
& her carnations to see a new season.
My mother always says boys & men are best
at taking. I remember the ones I loved who
turned pomegranates in my yard into salt.
In the mirror, I see a donkey’s head without
a home. Daisies dance atop her hair &
she teaches me how to wail for cover.
My mother & I kneel on uncooked rice.
Sweat of our hands no longer remembers
its owner. Our knees become prunes.
One night, I see my father weep & rock
like a forgotten river. How he must know
what it’s like to fight against disappearance.
Every year Lake Azuéi rises & forces change
on the trees & birds & people of the watershed.
They no longer believe the water will leave them.
The longer I stay in the home my lover & I
built on this mountain, the more I tire
of circadian leaps into the field of cacti.
I spend nights imagining a life without hail &
company of vultures. I make peace with the ways
my father & I look away from errors & ruin.
My parents make rituals of warnings & I follow
in their footsteps anyway. My mother says I can
build a new home from clouds & I believe her.
Language
The ocean swallowed a father.
My father’s father whole. His father ate
too many hearts of chicken & women. He ate
his children. My father, one of them.
By the time my mother & father walked
by the same tree, he was born again
into new skins. My father is multilingual.
He knows the cadence of clouds
after murmuration. The language:
Algebra equations, American
English, rough hands, Haitian Creole,
turned backs & laughter. He taught me
how to eat the sun & my own tongue.
How to eat the sun & my own tongue,
turned backs & laughter. He taught me
English, rough hands, Haitian Creole,
Algebra equations, American
after murmuration. The language:
he knows the cadence of clouds
into new skins. My father is multilingual.
By the same tree, he was born again
by the time my mother & father met
his children. My father, one of them.
Too many hearts of chicken & women. He ate
my father’s father whole. His father ate
the ocean & swallowed a father.