Living in the Gray (Pre-view)
(Brooklyn Poets Fellowship Semi-Finalist)
My mother’s accent flows
through the aisles
of a grocery store
passing through people
who have never heard
someone talk like that
before.
My father tells me stories
of a small island lost
in the Caribbean Sea
I use my imagination,
dreaming of what could be,
if I lived in such a beautiful place,
where the ocean breeze
hits your face
and the reggae beats boom all day.
But instead, I’m left living in the gray.
Family Tree
(African Voices Magazine, issue 45)
My family tree
lies in the backyard —
tombstones unmarked,
forgotten, pushed into the
ground.
No engravings to identify
the burial mounds that hold
their bones.
Their spirits whisper
in the grass; their voices lilt
in the wind, that blows and sways
through my curtains. Gentle, serene,
the force caresses me like the warm sea
breeze, that flows through the windward islands.
They hum their sorrows, in songs of grace. I listen
to their tribulations, the sufferings they’ve faced,
amongst the ache of a lineage almost erased.
Yet their aura is calm like the moonlight.
Harmonious, kind, a comforting presence
hat smiles down on their bloodline;
For their skeletons
are in the ground,
but I lie here,
safe and sound.
The Chameleon
(Brooklyn Poets Fellowship Semi-Finalist)
The mist comes in off the sea
and settles amongst the leaves
obscuring my body in fog.
I lurk in the rainforest,
my tail coiled around
a tree branch, as I flash
the scales of my vessel
to a foliage green, hiding
in plain sight, never to be seen.
Bending my shape, contorting,
transforming, for my own protection.
A natural skill for survival,
you’ll never know my true state.
But as I grow older ,
the fog starts to lift.
The mist dissipates
as my ability begins to slip.
I now enter your space
in a precarious state. Awkward,
uncertain, my colors waver in the light
fluctuating insecure parts of me.
Once a creature of art,
now fully exposed for the world to see
that I can no longer change color
to fit your environment
without losing myself
entirely.