for Imhade U.
I
When did they come ashore? like hook-hand pirates? Look,
there! end of the road Brazilians encamped, at the other
the Chinese; for oil or gold or fairy tale treasure, boat loads
of exotic diggers feeling up day breaks for confrontation:
her island sweet pepper bush against new buccaneers.
Coast inlets breached? who let them stay?
Those bamsies elected for siren
escort Hollow Follow! with posey pot players’ big
belly work on stage wanted limbo exchange for her currency
of years. Flambeau heart, upwind in flutter – ground here?
she’d wing, move time flickering elsewhere.
II
She spoke of new city life, migrant reservations,
family embers who’d shout cook old bird foods
when Italian pizza was just around the corner, and
that speared meat, what’s it called? and
dips in swirled jamoony sauce.
Well, when I came,
fleeing the sirens of bamsies on stage, you could stroll
fabled streets, stop shop book titles in windows.
You hope to face the day seized with iSpace? memory
links hand held? plus island cultivations? not even
the genuine article, east of real India, Africa west.
A real Gucci would joust you off sidewalks; unzipped
Japanese girls know possibility plays, they climb glass
mountains with eyes wide closed and parasols.
III
Pledge set eyes awed, a survivor tending futures!
next thing you know, from orchid pink lips, “Enough,
Tuesday chippin’s under wearing. Let me twine
myself with thee.”
After shared talk laugh sighs,
what purpose? Caught, they’d send her home, I’d lose
my tenure. “I’ve stripped to my soul for you – off
with alarm.”
Ok, here’s a gate, garden, felt paths to pact. First, huddled
hugs like snow down feathering the grass. Something more
comfortable? this thick white blanket on our landing
green, the stars aligned, a tiled roof Eden rented
for one night.
IV
Hard shipped to toil on island
shores of cropped compliance, cut last for crossing fresh,
who knew what port we’d find, fearing the gods
Date Due. Sure, fast fattened cell mate hips, sky vault
brick glass guarded; nights we’re too tired to take
breath deep. Here you get old by the hour and paid;
an icy wind feeds longing to the eye.
Curved kite
dancer of unknowing, dare I grade you up away?
down bite marks in the margins? Yes, we're tested;
not much from script; with each limb bare you
stretch raise torque up rush.
-W.W.
AFTER WORDS,
you embraced me
as though you were rescuing
a child out of the quicksand
of a floundering desire,
but who the child, whose the urge?
And did the tongue of fire fusing
your breast and mine utter not
only recognition but
also dismissal, a kind
of farewell manured by good
common sense fed by the fear
of drowning in the maelstrom
of our own insistent flames?
(from “Gift Of Screws” by Brian Chan)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 