The Lava Storyteller

​
Island of clay, sand and earth –
liquid lava now silent.
You are the land of trees dripping mangoes
and goats clinging to cliffs.

Bare feet read braille –
ancient explosions –
black crumbs and dust from when earth 
was the only inhabitant.

Island of Saba –
the earth speaks of ancestors –
still humming the old stories –
still laughing over a bottle of sweet Malta.

-first published in Verse Wisconsin, 2011

How to Eat a Mango
(for Cutchie)

Thick drip of syrup –
leathery, waxen skin –
the tree bursts.
Tradition showers down
with sweet, mango flesh.

Eyes wide –
full of white cloth.
Fingers hold pride –
dainty loops of Saban Lace.

Hold the halved fruit
in your hand, child,
and eat.
Cutchie shows me how.

In the bright light of now,
I remember.

-first published in the chapbook, The Lava Storyteller (Red Mare Press, 2013)

​

Saban Footsteps

​
I remember running 
in a sea of white shirts.
It was summer on Saba
after a party.

All of the children
poured out of the building
wearing white –
like strobe lights casting lines
in an arc.
They spread out –
a bird’s fantail –
disappearing into the night.

The sky grew darker.
Laughter danced all around me.

I swam through the streets,
as if on an ocean wave
of long, running limbs –
a tide that could not be contained.

I too, ran free –
the sound of many footsteps –
music filling the sky.