Dentonia
Maybe I’ll learn to love here where
they don’t know a cold Carib is to die
for;
where people don’t love like in a
brighter sun
those they love ‘beat
under love’
and love to
death themselves and those they love -
it’s June; the stone- washed denim sky’s
the same,
roiled at cuffs; eyelet holed skyscrapers
stand
tall, stick men wearing dark shades in
the evening
sun beyond the baseball red brick
diamond;
but a couple kissing in a street of riot
deepens faith in love amid a city’s loss,
here in Dentonia, too, among the astral
yellow dandelion
weeds: for just as many spent, a cloudy intertwining
helix
spiked and seamed with DNA disperses
promise
for the bissextile and even the year
after:
an eternity of love. Yet flame-torched
eyelids
shutter-less travelling slits, singed
plucked chicken,
bare of all fine hairs and yellow skin,
stand guard,
slumber-less; willing to shut out spit
and sizzle -
coz every time he comes, my Saga Boy,
his smile deflowers;
even when he screws the can, his Bitch,
Tan-Tan can’t even run;
“Don’t light me up again ... Please ...
Please...”
...aspergent
splash ... match scratch ... Boom!
-
yolk ringed in white lace bubbles
rippling in a pan of butter
pumiced flesh in
heavy metal acid wash -
yet in this refuge far removed from Mango
Bascapool, Doux Doux Darling,
and YES! Tabanca, love perchance again
will come
in this white desert, this weedy astral dandelion
patch,
eyes wide open in a whirlpool haze of
summer
amid shade trees I cannot name nor
claim,
(but does that really matter?)
About Cynthia James
Cynthia James is a Trinidadian, living for the past 3 years in Toronto. She writes poetry and fiction and her work can be found in publications such as Callaloo, Caribbean Writer and The Oxford Book of Caribbean Verse.
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