for Hughie Stanislas 

           the houses press closer & closer

     against the don drumming light.   against

           sky   that is their living monument

           —Kamau Brathwaite, “Koker”



A plank of hardwood cut like teeth –^–^–^–^–^–
to hold in place the steps of a staircase 
serving as footbridge across trench
of blackwater and mudded earth
sprouting victoria lilies and ‘one-foot’ 
wild eddo whose lofty purple-veined
legs sway in the softened seabreeze,
a gentle, moist and salty heir, who
conveys the sounds of cows contented
with birds on their backs pecking at
insects and disturbed flesh, parrots 
in the yellow plum plimpler branches 
above, amassing in the dungs tree                             *

                                                                                      *     *

at the center of this abandoned lot                        ^

                                                                                   ^

now accommodating the village dump.         ^

                                                                              ^

That saline draught also carries an acrid ^
smoke of scorched refuse, rubbish
gathered into the cavity of a rusted-out
refrigerator turned on its back from 
where a smoldering plastic bag caught 
that same wind, and silently lit upon 
my young boy’s wrist instantaneously 
attaching to and liquifying his touched flesh 
sending lower limbs sprinting up the steps 
in astonishment, upper limbs cradling torso
silently inside to be coddled, cared, why rebuked?
for creating future scars: monuments unveiled.