from Spanish Town to the Jamaican border

“The soil is red here, you see?”

“Yes.” The dirt is being kicked up in the air- turning, churning under us. It sticks to the horses’ hooves and up, up, as if they are being painted for battle. “It makes everything look wild,” I go on, almost to myself. Almost, because he is always listening. “Like war,” my lips suggests, still looking at the muddy horse hair. But my eyes soon drift- towards the green trees and purple mountains and I shake my head quickly. “No. War is not wild.”

“You think war is not wild?” He asks in his mocking, condescending tone. I glance at his face- so petulant, so eager to outdo me. His eyes are like beetles resting on a pale mask. ‘You think you know more than you do’ I think. ‘That is the fallacy of fools’.

I look away from him, to where red runs into the blue of the sky.

“No. Nature is wild. War is human.”

Life in the suburbs

And do you take, sir, you take

the packed lunch tied with silver hair,

hooked, so and so, so and so;

a clock, a ferris wheel.

Is it sand, or dirt, or the flap of a cut thumb,

does it sting, satisfy,

the tastes of this new world? So needy,

so complacent.

Don’t stare, fish pallet, at my hyena teeth;

aphasia of the mind, hyperpolarisation of the tongue,

is that the name you hold for me?

A clock. A ferris wheel.

Stand, hunched, a story from Paris,

handing over the curled petals of your fingers, the slow witted

thorns of your nails. I do not need the irony

of your Imogen Cunningham memorabilia.

Square steps, you compromise,

One two, one two- so and

So?

...................................................I am so tired of this.

a crowded room

Rust, residue of nissl stain on lips, on fingertips-
You have been talking to him again,
Neglect of the eyes, crow feather skin.
....................................................................You promised.

The voice that shivers,
Or talks in adjectives and colours,
The girl in red- deep breaths deep breaths-
Is it them?

Flies, fat and filled like hanging pearls
That attach jealously to the edges of the mouth
That curls, again, over your ears- no, deeper
Deeper still?

Stop, he pleads- No more,
Iccarus,
No more. The hand is held flat-
Slapped, or empty

The gold is fake, flakes, off the corner of your eyes-
Watch them turn to moths, birds, that burn
Or reflect
The higher they go.

Blue pill, red pill, no pill
What is real, what is you,
As you talk to them again.

You promised.

Seconds

And your whale skin, no
more or less desired, is
unattended but for the dementia of
moss and other soft creatures.

Words that fly for years;
falcons, or sharks, or deer,
that rarely land on comprehension and ears
in the jungle of the mind.

For a few breaths that are
but a moth in winter,
the sky on your face is blue
and cloudless.
....................................................................I miss you.