Poetry

Man Nini From "Crossroads and Unholy Water" Man Nini was queen of the coal kitchen, standing within six square feet of soot, in front of four pits glowing with embers, churning the bubbling bean sauce, beaming the yellow kernels of her smile at the chickens flapping...

The Fall of Sanctuaries I was a child who gazed at the sky. Each time we drove past the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Port-au-Prince, my eyes met with Christ. I never missed the chance, as we passed the church, to look up, contemplate the immense Christ who...

Migrant To be a poet is to hurt—I came, I saw, I hurt. We stand, we vouch, we lie— the truth we want is not— tis a dream we have of life we knew in a world we lost. The cross we bear, we brought— America was brave and bold and here for us who ventured forth with ills...

Sanctuary I name this Sanctuary. Enter. I want you to bare your feet— you must feel the difference in touch. A Kilim rug stretches far ahead, offered for your every step, its hard fibers impervious to what weighs, acting as emissary from the ancient grievances of...

An Estuary Our friends go like bark from a sycamore. They fall off the big tree to be swept with the season. Too much of their absence takes mercy out of the heart— we collect the silence left by a face that tossed its teeth, a one-eyed inquisitor, a faded rose sunk...

Published by Carcanet Press Inc. England New Caribbean Poetry, Anthology, 2007 May You Live May you live long, long, to a blossomed, handsome, patriarchal age, the incandescence of your eyes illuminating fields you traverse. May your love, irretrievably spent, gather...