Poui xiv by Poui

POUI

CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

NUMBER XIV, 2013

POUI THE CAVE HILL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING

Number XIV, 2013

CONSULTANT EDITORS: Kamau Brathwaite

EDITORIAL BOARD: Jane Bryce Hazel Simmons窶信cDonald Mark McWatt

COVER ART: Paul Gibbs

INTRODUCTION Welcome to Poui XiV: now exclusively online. Regular readers will see some familiar names and the editors would like you to know how this comes about. Every year when we get together to choose what will go in the next issue, we have no idea who the authors are. We read all the work ‘blind’, meaning without seeing the names, and make our selection purely on the basis of what appeals to us – good writing, the way we’ve always defined it. We see Poui: Cave Hill Journal of Creative Writing as the natural successor to the small magazines which nurtured the early growth of Caribbean writing – Bim, Kyk‐over‐al, The Beacon, etc. Funded by the Department of Language, Linguistics and Literature, UWI, Cave Hill, it is independent and has no other agenda than to be a vehicle for new and interesting writing. It makes no distinctions and has no preferences about your age, race, class, sex, religion or where you shop. All that matters is that what’s in its pages should make the hair stand up on the back of your neck – the infallible test of good writing

We’re as surprised as anyone to see who the authors are when the typescript comes back for editing. On the other hand, we’re always glad to see familiar names because it means we’re part of a community of writers who care enough about Poui to keep sending in their work, year after year. We also welcome the new names, which this year include several from the Creative Writing: Fiction course which is part of the Cave Hill Literatures in English degree. Although the lecturer – Jane Bryce ‐ is also a Poui editor, their submissions are judged blind, just like anyone else’s. We may have our own preferences, but the editors have to agree before a piece of work is selected, so there’s no favouritism. Of course, we are overjoyed whenever we get a chance to publish work by our own students. Poui is often the first place they will have seen themselves in print in a public forum, and part of why it exists is to encourage young writers. The thrill of discovering a new writer quite by chance in and through Poui is one of its primary pleasures. That’s why, this issue, we’re highlighting a writer who (as far as we as readers were concerned) popped up out of nowhere. We selected several of her pieces on their individual merit, and found ourselves with a startling new voice: that of Carlyon Blackman. None of us knew her work and she hadn’t been a student of ours. At the same time as she is new and original, it’s obvious she’s been working at her craft over time. Her poems didn’t spring fully formed from their creator’s head; they show the signs of care, thoughtfulness and attention to detail vital to the process of revision. We are very pleased, therefore, to host Carlyon Blackman as our Featured Writer in this edition. We hope for more like her – more new names who spring up unexpectedly with work that shows the signs of mature reflection and dedication to writing for its own sake. Alongside Carlyon, we are featuring the joint winners of the Poetry section of the Guyana Prize for Literature 2012, announced in September 2013. Their sharing of the prize underlines the dual direction of literary awards like the Guyana Prize and journals like Poui – celebrating the known, welcoming the unknown. Ian McDonald is a much‐published writer, author of the canonical novel The Hummingbird Tree, published in 1969 and numerous poetry collections, of which The Comfort of all Things – his winning entry to the Guyana Prize – is the latest. Cassia Alphonso is a young newcomer, whose Black Cake Mix is her first, still unpublished, collection. Poui XIV offers readers one poem from each collection as an example of prize‐winning work from within the region. From the editors: Jane Bryce, Hazel McDonald‐Simmonds and Mark McWatt. 4

POUI XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS Ahimsa Bodhrán White Pine …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7 When I Learned Praying to be Straight Was Not Useful ………………………………………… 7 Wind ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 Carol Mitchell Knowing Face ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 9 Vashti Bowlah The Lottery Ticket …..……………………………………………………………………………………….. 10 Maggie Harris Guitar Hero ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 13 When the Waters Came …………………………………………………………………………………….. 18 October Harvest ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 19 D’Anthra Adderley Away From Home …………………………………………………………………………………………… 20 All Great Artists Sleep With Their Muses ………………………………………………………………… 21 Obediah Smith Rats Among the Rafters …………………………………………………………………………………….. Egg White …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. City Market …………………………………………………………………………………………………… Stones for Stephen …………………………………………………………………………………………… Electric Trick ………………………………………………………………………………………………….

23 24 25 25 26

Victoria Sarne Regret …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 27 Reflections of an Older Woman Nearing Another Birthday …………………………………………… 27 Carlyon Blackman; Featured Writer Black Ice ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… To Be That Beautiful Girl ………………………………………………………………………………….. Balancing Act ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Her Wholesome Goodness Green Everything …………………………………………………………… Borrowing Privileges ……………………………………………………………………………………….. Rock Paper Scissors ………………………………………………………………………………………… Talking Head ………………………………………………………………………………………………… A Dog’s Life ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. The Case of the Suicidal Fish ………………………………………………………………………………

30 31 31 32 32 33 33 34 34

Joy Murray Family Home ………………………………………………………………………………………………..

A-dziko Simba Beyond ………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 41 Enough ……………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 41 Ian McDonald What it was Like Once Forever …………………………………………………………………………… 45 Cassia Alphonso Lady Lucille ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 45

Excerpt from “ ‘A jewel fuh watch sparkle’: Cassia Alphonso’s poetry” by Lori Shelbourne, Stabroek News. ……………………………………………………………. 46 Janice Lynn Keepin ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Mia Cumberbatch What the Eyes Don’t see …………………………………………………………………………………..

Aston Agard A Tangled Web………………………………………………………………………………………………

Devon Edwards Melting Ice ………………………………………………………………………….………………………

Jody Sandiford Ends Meet ………………………………………………………………………………………..…….......

Amanda Haynes Talamak ………………………………………….………………………………………………………….

Contributors ……………………………………………………………………………………

Ahimsa Bodhrán White Pine We are sticky and prickly to the touch, but oh what sweetness in our sap. We will make you sick, go through convulsions, but you will vomit out all that has poisoned you. We have been here forever despite clear-cuts, the inroads of “progress,” like ginkgo of clear memory, a cleansing of the palate, tongue, lungs; still breathing. Touch us; go through the pain to the other side, clearing grief like pilgrims from the land into joy. When i learned praying to be straight was not useful the first time i brought a man to sweat, taught him to offer tobacco, i came full circle. it is here i first lit fire. and almost a decade later i return, with man. a year later i returned, after the prayers had betrayed me, after i had betrayed myself. and i tried not to judge the man i brought with me. perhaps we always judge those learning what we are ourselves. perhaps that is what we offer the fire: to burn and renew, Ancestors working through it for us in the flames. a year prior, here, praying to be straight, praying to be anything other than what i was: a lover of man. here i returned, unalone, with family. i had not expected to be the one teaching, guiding hand, voice, guiding body over rock and stump, through kitchen, over stream by log, snow flower, to a place where water falls, tumbling over rock and cliff, into the first round, out the second, sometimes all four, him still learning new lungs, through the heat and dark, new breath.

something healed in me there. who knew in the loving of another man, gentle, from a distance, i’d partake of new waters, smell pine anew, count lichens of trees, rejoice in swarmings of ladybugs on an evening shirt. who knew i’d offer words to someone who didn’t know them, but heard them resonate in, quill, quiver, from before birth. who knew i’d be teacher, and in the teaching, taught: a new drum singing in my chest, rhythm playing through our bodies, all the notes. Wind Sing from the back of your throat, out each nostril. Flare in retention, bone beyond cartilage. Smoke fills our lungs; ceremony. Deep tones, towards the fire and back, tabaco released from palm toward each direction, we circle round. Serpents tongue the sky, lick for moisture, north, rain; mosquitoes. We are not the only dancers. Coral webbings, single hooves, paddles, flips, stubs, only distant memories of legs, dwell in my ear, vibrate, dip down to root tap. River through my canyon. Bead my brow. Plants rattle to the ground, seed pods wither and burst; dry, sinking in, sought soil, tunneling to fire. Perfume of the body, we kiss by smelling. Renewed, leaving dried on skin, marking shared territories, marred skin, pores flooded, without wounding (those are other rituals, fire-tipped, of piercing and pulse). I take you in by breathing

through each motion, deeper into emptiness, full feathers flap, down my back this place the clouds have hidden. Seeded. Snow falls into the fire. We mist up, and grace the sky. Carol Mitchell Knowing Face It was John’s face, but it didn’t belong here. Maybe in St. Kitts, Barbados, Trinidad, One of our islands. It was a knowing face; But it didn’t belong here; Not here in Africa. It was John’s nose, and his eyes too, Set square in the face of a Ghanaian man – Kwaku; It was a knowing face, A face from home, but Right here in Africa. He smiled and it was like John’s lips Had floated across the ocean And settled on the face of this man Peering at me with his knowing face From under the load he carried on his head In Ghana … in Africa. John in Ghana, Ghana in John, A face that survived the middle passage. A knowing face that knows where it came from.

Vashti Bowlah The Lottery Ticket Dave thought he was the next best thing to sliced bread. He combed his thick mass of hair with deliberate care, wore the trendiest style and drove a neat little car. The physical demands of his job at a warehouse kept him fit. After playing with the hearts of several young women, it was the talk of the entire village when he married a simple girl, compared to his previous conquests. He believed that women were sent on this earth to serve men and bear their children. This would often be a topic of debate when he met his friends at a popular hangout every Friday after work. Glenn and Barry were already at their usual table when he strolled in. “You late, so the next round’s on you,” said Glenn. “Sorry fellas, Anju wanted a few things from the grocery.” Dave occupied the vacant chair. “Boy, since I know you, you holding on to your wallet tight-tight, you can’t give your wife some money to buy what she need?” asked Glenn. “Women feel they too smart, once I start giving she money then crapaud smoke my pipe,” Dave replied. “Besides, she don’t have a problem with that.” “How you so sure?” Glenn lifted his shoulders. “Is three years we married and she never complain yet, because she getting everything she ask for.” “You’re lucky it’s Anju you’re married to and not some other woman.” Barry joined in. “What you trying to say?” Dave got defensive. “She not all that pretty but she does make up for it in other ways.” “You mean like cooking and cleaning all day?” Barry gulped down his drink and brought his glass down on the table. “That’s what a wife suppose to do, she lucky to get a man like me.” “I don’t know boy,” Glenn shook his head. “Women these days don’t like to be taken for granted, look what happen to Raj and he wife, and up to now he still trying to win she back.” “My wife not like that, she happy doing what she doing.” “You keep saying that but you ever ask she? She left a good office job to stay home and wait on you hand-and-foot, but you don’t know if that’s what she really wants,” said Barry. “Look fellas, everyday I getting three hot meals, when I drop my dirty clothes on the floor it wash and smelling clean-clean the next day, and when I tired after work she massaging me too, I couldn’t ask for more. Since I get married to she, I feel like…like I win the lottery.” “Then she settled for the consolation prize, because what do you do for her?” Barry challenged. Dave slacked back on his chair. “She have a nice house with a two-door fridge, microwave, washing machine, dryer, and not to mention a good-looking husband.” “I don’t know boy, I will never stop my wife from working,” said Glenn. “I don’t want no woman asking me for money every time she want something, she have to help out in the house too.” “I never tell she to leave she job. When we now get married, she coming home late from work everyday and I can’t get my food on time, so I tell she I not buying no outside food when I have a wife to cook for me, and that’s all I tell she.” Dave ignored the disapproving looks from the two men. “And we know how you like your belly.” Glenn remarked. “All you eat by me already, so you know how she hand sweet.”

“I think you should be more considerate, when I went to check your bathroom, she was doing housework right through,” said Barry. “I was sorry I didn’t have time to fix it the same day, but I’ve been working some strange hours with these new contracts.” “She only went to school with you but is me she fall in love with, so all you better stop minding my business. I know Anju better than anybody else and she happy with me,” Dave repeated. “When I go home she go have a nice hot meal waiting for me.” Dave arrived home to find the front door locked. He retrieved his key and was met with an unusual calm. He called out to Anju but there was no response. He grew concerned. He moved through the house to find that the clothes he had thrown on the floor that morning were still there, and so were the dirty dishes in the sink. The bathroom had flooded and he stumbled over the new tap and fittings that were left on the floor. He had promised Anju he would replace the tap in the face basin after Barry had dropped off the tools. Anju never went anywhere without his permission. A thought occurred to him and he dashed into the bedroom and opened her wardrobe. Her clothes and personal belongings were gone, as well as her suitcase. He sank down on the rumpled bed, covering his face with his hands until reality kicked in. He called everyone he knew but no one had seen her. Her family claimed not to know where she was but he had his doubts, since they never seemed to like him. It was dark when he made his final call and the rumbling sounds of his empty stomach reminded him that he had missed dinner. For the first time in his life, he had no appetite. Dave went in search of Anju the next day. He visited the homes of friends and relatives, and even her former workplace. By the end of the day, he had exhausted all hope of finding her, and paid a visit to his parents. His mother gave him a verbal thrashing and reminded him that he was just like his father, and didn’t know how to appreciate a good woman. He left feeling alone and dejected. Days turned into weeks and there was still no word from her. He called in sick and existed in his own world. He was oblivious to the dishes piled up in the sink and the dirty clothes scattered about the floor. The house was dusty and remnants of the fast food he had been surviving on for the past few weeks were stinking. He searched for any indication as to why she would leave him. He recalled when Anju had greeted him two weeks earlier in a track pants and t-shirt that stuck to her thickening frame. She always greeted him at the door. Her cinnamon skin was flawless except for a few minor scars from childhood mishaps, and her straight hair that reached past her shoulders was held back in a pony tail. Loose strands of sweaty hair were plastered to her face. He hadn’t noticed then that dark circles were forming under her eyes, which had lost their sparkle. That day, he had dismissed Glenn’s and Barry’s usual taunts about his marriage when he saw the sumptuous meal spread out on the kitchen table. “Don’t forget to change the tap in the face basin this weekend.” She had reminded him then, and so many times before. “This weekend is the All-fours match so I’ll do it next weekend.” “It can’t stay for so long, it’s leaking and getting worse every day.” “All right, I will ask Barry to help me with it, he go do a better job than me.” “Okay, but find out what we’ll have to buy.” “I wouldn’t have time to go to the hardware, so I will ask him to buy everything and pay him back.” “Let me know for sure, so I could at least offer him something to eat for his trouble.” Dave had finished his meal and asked for more. “You does make the best curry chicken and dhalpuri, the day you could give me two children; a boy and a girl, you will be the perfect wife.” Anju had served him seconds and spilled some juice while she refilled his glass. He now realized the harshness of his words. 11

“I’m going to finish scrubbing the bathroom floor, call me if you need anything else.” She had said in a soft shaky voice and run off. Anju had always been devoted to him but seemed disengaged since that day, speaking only when spoken to. Their routine had been the same since they married. Dave worked Mondays to Fridays, accompanied her to the supermarket every fortnight, and whenever she needed to see a doctor or attend family functions. On Fridays he met his friends for drinks after work. He heard a car pull up in the driveway and rushed to the front door, confident that Anju had come to her senses and returned. He sighed when he saw it was his mother. She took one look at the messy house and chastised him for living in a dump. Dave glanced around and didn’t recognize his own house. It had never looked like this while Anju was here. His mother dragged him along in search of cleaning tools since he didn’t know where they were kept. They found a broom, a dust cloth and some cleaning supplies and went to work. Dave was sure they’d have the entire house cleaned before the end of the day, but by late evening they were only halfway through. He never knew he owned so many dishes or where all the dust had come from. His mother took home his laundry and promised to return the next day. He was tired and his body ached when he dropped into bed that night. He wondered how Anju managed to get all of the housework done and still have dinner ready on time. His friends were right. He would never take a woman for granted again. This was too much work. He thought of a solution and smiled. If Anju didn’t return soon he could remarry, if only before the dishes piled up again. When he drifted off to sleep, he dreamt of a spotless house, clean laundry and home cooked meals. He dreamt of a beautiful wife who greeted him at the door. Two months had passed when he received a phone call from Anju. She told him that she wanted a divorce and her lawyer would be serving him with the papers soon. She asked if he would be so kind as to release her by signing the papers when they arrived. He discovered that he didn’t hate her for leaving him and he was no longer upset, he was surprised that she had tolerated him for so long. He agreed and wished her well. Six months later, what had started off as a dull and gloomy morning would turn out much brighter by late evening. He stopped off at the pharmacy and met the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Suzie’s smooth hair cascaded down her slender back to her narrow waistline. Her long lashes enhanced her big brown eyes, and her lips were painted ruby red. Her nails were polished and manicured and her girlish figure encased in blue jeans and red sleeveless top. He visualized the beautiful children they would have. He was smitten and before the end of the month they were married and she had moved into his house. Soon after, they were curled up in the sofa watching a movie when Dave initiated the topic. “Will be nice to have a couple of kids running around the house.” “Kids?” she repeated the word with scorn. “Whose kids?” “Ours. You don’t want any?” “Dave sweetheart, this body was not created for child bearing,” she replied. “And I don’t do housework or laundry either, so we need to hire a maid, this house is a mess.” Dave felt his body turn to lead, unable to move or speak. He had always wanted children but Anju could not conceive regardless of their efforts, or how many doctors she visited. He had taken her to herbal clinics and tried every position that was recommended, but nothing worked. Though disappointed with Suzie’s proclamation, he was determined to make his marriage work this time. He knew he was the envy of every man in the village. Whenever they went out together, men turned to have a second look at Suzie and he beamed with pride. He couldn’t afford to hire a maid, not even part-time, and he didn’t dare call on his mother while he had a wife. When he asked Suzie to cut down on expenses like visiting the hairdresser or manicurist, she threw a tantrum and didn’t speak to him for days. So instead, he learned how to use 12

household appliances and took care of all their needs. He cooked and cleaned during the week, and did the laundry on weekends. Suzie would drop her dirty clothes on the floor and he would wash, press and fold them. She only had to mention her desire for a particular meal and Dave would ensure it was prepared. He worked, made shopping lists, stocked up his cupboards, did his errands and paid his bills. He couldn’t recall the last time he had met Glenn or Barry for drinks, or played an All-fours match. Two years later, he was at the supermarket and heard a familiar voice in the next lane. He took a few steps closer and his jaw dropped when he saw Anju with a protective hand over her huge swollen stomach. She was glowing and he guessed her to be about eight months pregnant. Dave shifted his curious eyes to the man beside her and his throat went dry. He felt giddy and leaned against a shelf, almost knocking over the items. Barry was smiling adoringly into her eyes, his arms stretched across her waist. They were in love. Dave wanted to confront them but decided against it when he saw the smile on Anju’s face, her eyes sparkling once again. He moved away at a furious pace, raced out the door and into his car. He arrived home and heard Suzie’s voice from the kitchen. He stepped closer and caught a glimpse of her cradling the phone to her ear. She was stretched on top of the counter, her ankles crossed, playing with the telephone cord. From her tone, he could tell she was speaking to one of her girlfriends. “I am so happy you two are finally getting married, you must come over for dinner sometime, my husband is the greatest cook. I myself never thought I would ever get married, but since I hooked up with Dave, it’s like…like having the winning lottery ticket.” Dave dropped his chin, slipped past her and retreated to the bedroom. He needed to convince himself that he was the envy of every man, because he was married to the most beautiful woman in the village.

Maggie Harris Guitar Hero (from short story collection: Canterbury Tales on a Cockcrow Morning, Cultured Llama Press, 2012.) They say talent runs in families. Show me any child who can sing or dance, stare determinedly into the distance, or has what is politely described as a passionate nature. “What can you expect?” will be the sigh, “look at her father, that man had golden tonsils I tell you.” And, “She’s the spitting image of Aunt Bertha, went on the stage at a time when it wasn’t decent, didn’t care, toured and all, from Blackpool to Margate.” The conversation will go full speed ahead in any direction, linger on fathers and mothers, greataunts and wild uncles who took a boat to Singapore with a touring company and never returned. There is always an uncle who roadied for The Who or brother who played the meanest guitar this

side of the Mississippi and if he’d got the breaks he deserved wouldn’t be living on the unemployment now in that seedy bottom flat in Dover. Well it could go on, the conversation, as you look at little Ruby or Tommy whose golden tonsils or ability in street dance could be sourced to someone in the family. What could stop that thread of thought, especially these days, is when there was only one side of the family to be traced from, as baby mothers and baby fathers are so often now doing it for themselves, if you get my drift. And the offspring? Well. Take Carissa now. You know I didn’t have to do much eavesdropping here at all, you know what these young people are like on their mobile phones. Carissa has been singing and dancing since before she could walk. Carissa’s daddy was around then, when the thrill of being a babyfather was the business, and any little deal he had going down was woven in around playing her each new track hot off the press or sitting them in front the telly to watch MTV. That man, a pretty man too, by all accounts, lived for music the way some people lived for alcohol or gastronomy, and played a mean guitar. Carissa knew Bo Diddley by the time she was two, she gave three-year old impressions of Hendrix doing All along the Watchtower, she could copy Jay Lo to a T, Madonna to a D for Diva. Her tiny trebly voice boomed out of the karaoke machine by the time she was four and sometime around then is when her daddy slid out the door. Carissa’s mother Amber was not what you thought of as a victim. After dissing the man every opportunity she had, and wiping the slate clean of any mutual friends who still spoke to him, she decided to change her life completely and moved to Canterbury. She found herself a job, made new friends, and clubbed when she could afford it. For Carissa the hours in front of MTV came to an end, as did the weekly thrill of playing new sounds her daddy got hot off the press, or listening to her daddy play his guitar. Amber just listened to Invicta and sometimes Radio Kent as a backdrop to her constant phone calls whilst she stirred dinner, painted her nails, and ran baths for her little woman who had started school by now and needed regularity. But the dancing and the singing in Carissa kept living. The child used a hairbrush for a mike, hummed still-remembered riffs from Hendrix which she played with fingers growing long and decorated in the glowing colours belonging to her mother. Amber enrolled her at ballet school. “She don’t get it from me!” Amber would guffaw to some girlfriend or visiting relative who was watching Carissa do her air guitar and dance like a four-foot diva on the laminate floor. “Um ummm!” said company would expel, “I never seen the like! Where this child get her thing from!?” They still talked their home-talk, these black women, who had sniffed at Amber’s decision to leave Peckham at first as a betrayal and then in admiration. Nuff time to leave the bastard city, best for the chile, but not many black faces round ‘ere, you don’t feel outaplace chile? Amber had done her own sniffing and quipped that since when does black people not feel outaplace anywhere in the world and only one generation back was the banana boat but they has got to take the lead from the poet Grace Nichols when she say, “Anywhere I hang my knickers is my home.” Those who had had some acquaintance with the baby father would roll their eyes and say, “Well it look like he leave something positive in the child!”

By this time Amber had settled down nicely with a guy called Francis, who had a dependable job at a well-known supermarket chain with opportunity to progress to store manager. Taking on a woman with a child was not something easily done, but Francis had already sown his wild oats, and had been a very young babyfather himself, a shock which, at sixteen, had had the wonderful effect of straightening out any kinks in his character, setting him on the right path, and even making him support his son, who, many had remarked, looked every inch of his mother. There was no Carissa’s daddy to contend with, so Francis had slid more or less smoothly into life with Amber, paying the bills, going out now and then, and having friends over for dinner. The summer Carissa was twelve she rebelled. Cute Carissa became moody Carissa who didn’t want no man who was not her daddy telling her what to do. There was things and things Carissa did not tell neither her mother nor Francis. School was a war-zone she’d had to fight in since the age of ten, it only took one sour-face girl to repeat some racist slur she’d heard to send feathers flying in the playground. Carissa got sharp, empowered by snippets of black literature touched on in school, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther; and music of course. It was a good time to be black when the charts were full of artists like Jay Z, Beyonce, JLS and Rihanna. So the girl found her world and carved her place in it, supported on the sidelines by the powerful, raucous women who were her mother and her mother’s friends. The girl had friends too, how good or how bad they were remains to be seen. But still, in the pit of Carissa’s heart was a big big hole, and the only thing that could really fill it was her dancing. Somehow school began to lose its flavour, then she wasn’t really into ballet, street dance was more her thing, and the clothes she began to wear turned Amber’s face to stone. The friends she brought home (when she did, as the streets were the new front room) hung their mean faces low and dull as the gum they chewed with a brief ‘awright?’ at Amber. Francis’s hard-earned wages had helped to install Sky so the music videos were turned up loud, filled with the gyrating pelvises of young girls who looked like hookers and guys with waxed chests and supercilious jaw-lines looking both murderously and lovingly at their women. Mornings were battlegrounds of whipped sheets and slamming doors. After long stretches of altercation and interaction between well-meaning authorities, the next shock for Amber was answering her door one Saturday morning to a long thin man who turned out to be Carissa’s babyfather. “Leon? Leon!” He leaned against the doorframe and watched her before saying in a well-rehearsed manner sorry for the surprise and the long time out of touch but life had taken him in directions he had been forced to follow and only the Almighty had lighted the way out of despair and the pits of hell and the biggest loss had been lack of communication with his beloved daughter Carissa for which he was duly absolutely and unquestionable deeply profoundly sorry and if he was to be given another chance neither Amber nor Carissa would regret it, and by the way he had every respect for Francis, the man, the brother, the new anointed. For one brief moment in his tamarind eyes Amber saw the young man her unformed self had almost drowned its spirit in. She saw the locks he’d begun to grow when Carissa was born (not strictly partial to the Rastafarian faith but as a symbol of new life in all its creative power) tumble out of the tam as he stood hat in hand at her front door. She saw the sideways smile that had used to kill her dead in those early dancehall days whilst she and her girlfriends pushed their way to the very front of the stage deafened by the big speakers. She saw his hands with the long fingers and the onyx ring cupping their baby girl onto his lap with the feeding bottle. And then

she saw the weeks of Carissa screaming cos her daddy had gone. Bile rose straight out of her liver and became an ejaculation of words . He stood still waiting. When she had done, her heart beating loud and fast, and words like waste of space and useless inconsiderate hard-hearted mean bastard danced around the doorway like angry slashes of light, he raised his head and said quietly “Can I come in now?” Carissa meantime was in Essex, (unbeknown to her mother). She was dressed in lime-green hotpants with black lace tights, red stilettos borrowed from her friend Hayley’s big sister (unbeknown to her), a black basque and a black leather jacket with a faux-fur hood. She stood outside a driveway with Hayley and a dozen or so other girls dressed in a range of attire that stretched from diamante hoods to brief skirts that dared the cold. The golden portal at the end of the driveway was a garage door, guarded by four or five young men who smoked weed and laughed, gold glinting from wrists and fingers. Occasionally the doors opened, and through the haze of pungent smoke and the dull boom of music a finger would beckon and the guard-dogs part to let a couple of the girls in. With a rush they would all surge forward, only to be held back by the snarling toughies who gave the impression of being charming, and who could easily give you the nod if they liked your style. With the jostling of breasts, compost of perfumes, the familiarity and high fives, it was quite apparent that having an asset was the key. Carissa stepped back and eyed up her opponents. No-one there would know she was only thirteen. All of them were high style. Big eyes, false eyelashes, bright mouths and hair that had taken hours, days, months to weave, colour, shape and pay for. She watched one of them stroke the tattooed arm of the tall guy. Another pursed her bronze lips against the cheek of the stubbled one. For all her mouth and attitude Carissa recoiled. She stood apart and closed her eyes. She could feel the beat through the doors and the concrete floor. So she danced. She’d come here to dance, so. She was Beyonce, she was Jay Lo, she was Christina Aguilera. She was Madonna in the eighties. Lady Gaga had nothing on her. She was in her own wild world on this universe of concrete where dreams stoked rough rhythms banging out the garage doors. Snakes hissed their spite from lipstick mouths as the other girls clocked her. But - “little darling!”an oiled voice ran. And she opened her eyes to find her arm guided by one of the guards who locked eyes with her, and drew her against the wall. “Well sweet sugar and I ain’t seen you nowhere baby.” She shrugged and replied , “ Oh I been around.” And stole the chance and said, “You think you could get me in?” He sucked in his cheeks and whistled, his thumb lifting her chin. “Well you know Dixie is a busy man you know.” And he swept his fingers in the direction of the driveway where the queue had grown even longer.“We don’t know nuttin ‘bout you sweetness. More than our job’s worth to let just any little girl in here now. We’re dealin’ with the main man here.” “Well I don’t know you either, and I just want to dance.”

“Um hmmn, Well everybody want to dance, y’know sweetness. But they got pass by me now.” He laughed. “They call me the Gate-Keeper you know.” Carissa felt the eyes of the other girls pouring down on her with scorn. She thought of her mother slagging her off this morning about another meeting up the school. Same time back in Canterbury her long lost daddy was saying to her cold mother, “Well maybe don’t say nuttin, I can surprise her.” He stretched his long legs out and checked out his babymother’s living-room. Leather sofa, laminate floor, African rug. Nice. Hadn’t quite sold out to Mammon then. Francis had come home from work and after the shock of seeing Carissa’s blood-father had held his tongue and decided to be civil. He had his universe to protect, and in his experience it was wise to use the lessons of some of the African folk tales he had been brought up with. Ananse never openly confronted his enemy, instead he buttered him up with sweet talk and compliments, so distracting his opponent who could be any creature from a snake to a jaguar. Leon was playing the part of the born-again, dropping the name of the Almighty into every phrase, re-iterating time and again his sinfulness at being a bad father, the lost sheep. Epiphany had come through a notsurprising prison sentence, little bits of this and little bits of that, and the small matter of downloading music illegally and selling it on. He peppered his language with a blend of Old Testament Rastafarianisms, referring both to Jah and The Lord; and seeing himself in the role of Abraham, tested to sacrifice his son hic daughter. True is the Light of the Lord Almighty, he said, that he should take their daughter out of Babylon into the Promised Land. Francis found his metaphors confusing, but held his tongue. Carissa did not come home. After checking with all of her friends who Amber had numbers for, Amber practised the well-known and justifiable act of checking her daughter’s Facebook account. She had managed to crack her password just recently, ready for an occasion just like this. And there it was. Checking in for the video audition for Dixie Dreadman! Me and Hay! But there was no address, just those one-line answers the kids use, Cool Man! Rock it! Up there with the bitches man! And the like. Leon, walking into a situation for which he was totally unprepared, and unable to criticise the parental control of his one and only daughter by the people who had been raising her all this time, remembered his oath of allegiance to the law of the Born Again. He also remembered that of all the people who would know what music action was going down and where it was, it was him, and in ten minutes, through the double action of using his I-phone and Facebook he tracked Dreadman and the address of the audition. Without further ado, he offered the services of his chariot, a recently acquired souped-up Mazda, the sight of which raised Amber’s eyebrows and caused a normally non-West Indian Francis to suck his teeth, and soon they were driving at manageable speed along the M2. During the charge of the posse, to pass the time and ease the worry the peoples had to talk, and so Leon learned of the new hard times with Carissa, and so Amber and Francis were treated to the wishes and dreams of a Leon who, wanting to re-connect with his daughter was also investigating the possibility of opening a lil place somewhere close by where the young people could come and do their thing. Amber spent a lot of the journey with her lips pursed and looking out the window. But by and by in little more than an hour they’d exited the Dartford tunnel. Traffic slowed them up on that side of the Thames, but eventually they made their way off the motorway, turned off down B roads and nosed into a side street of unpretentious looking terraced houses. Girls were disconsolately coming out in twos and threes from a wide driveway at the end of the road. Leon didn’t look to see if parking was legal, Amber 17

didn’t hesitate approaching one of the disappointed girls and Francis and Leon soon time approached the gatekeeper with long legs and determined strides. At this point Francis, it must be said, did hold back; with his short clipped hair and work suit he did look a tad out of place. Leon however, did the guy thing. The fist-shake, the smile, the whisper to the gatekeeper, and lo and behold the doors opened like the parting of the waters. It was obvious that the auditions were coming to a close. Guys were packing up recording equipment, winding up cables and cameras. A sound-track was being wound down. Through the smoky air a cluster of girls were head to head with a guy who the gatekeeper indicated was the main man. Naturally Leon did not know his daughter. But Amber, in that lioness way that some mothers have, marched her march through the scent of weed and perfume, and up to the caricature of her daughter and without further ado grabbed her by the arm to face her. Carissa’s face was a picture. Her mother, in the way that some mothers have, loving in the midst of anger, pulled her close to her chest, and only then did she turn her to face the man standing behind her, whose face ran the gamut of emotions, with tears not far away. Carissa said two words: “Holy”, and “Shit”. I won’t tell a lie and say that things all went smoothly after that. Once a leopard always a leopard, but even they have to slow up sometimes. Leon did get his little business going, in these internet days Canterbury was good as anywhere. I won’t say that Carissa became an angel overnight, or that there weren’t rucks between the mother, father and stepfather, or that Carissa didn’t play her cards to suit her and boomerang between them all. But she going back to school, she still singing and dancing, and everybody trying to work things out. You can’t say fairer than that. Maggie Harris When the Waters Came They said that alligators crawled out of the mud; they were hyper, really wild talk about tails whipping and baring of teeth! At least one child was barely whisked away in time, his legs dangling like string behind his father’s Olympic stride. The women didn’t have time to do their hair, pick up a hairbrush even and that’s saying some, these are land mermaids remember, manatees, lounge on back-steps when the cooking’s done with brush and comb, dousing their hair with coconut oil, laughing at any men who dared to pluck a guitar string believing themselves a dude. The water ushered in the strangest things: Rupi’s underwear was caught high in a mango tree, waving strips of tangerine for weeks to come; her husband didn’t know where to put his face. They caught one creature, poor misunderstood thing, all out of sorts, had lost both house and home and he was swallowing everything, even a mobile phone that rung and rung until the battery died, and many wondered if the owner was still inside. 18

Maggie Harris October Harvest The Aunts are dying; one by one in Northern countries they are falling, a late crop that had held on to their shoots like Civil War women, uprooting aging bones and flesh to escape small revolutions, racial and economic disparity. They leave this earth with the smell of camphor balls and Limacol, with memories of secret gins and servant girls learning to take orders from newly married ‘coloured’ women sugar’s October harvest. I remember them like polished fruit, glass apples on a Bookers’ dining table reflected on the greenheart floor where I, the country child tiptoed past my cousins’ bedrooms, gleaming caves of comic books and records straight from the US of A. Aunt Leigh with the smile that surpassed a thousand mistresses, Aunt Joy, whose scissors shaped the futures of three decades of uncut women, several of whom caught her husband’s eye, or got the bank clerk job or flew out on the arms of Toronto salesmen. When it came their turn they left the guava and the bougainvillea, followed sons and daughters, placed their tired feet on tired soil, folded their fluttering hearts like envelopes their souls in winter coats stepped back five decades into white countries that labelled them black. The news comes in letters, messages of memories and bodies fading, then my mother on the telephone, her death-tone still, preparing me for yet another trans-Atlantic kill.

Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Anthra Adderley Away from home i. I am nothing but forgotten in the home I once knew torn from the lands like my ancestors were from Africa forced from milk to meat made to grow up they tell me I have to be strong that this is just the way it is it happens to everyone I think about periods the man-made products made to stop the natural flow of women what drugs can they prescribed to a college student to ease the pain of loneliness ii. I think about the many embraces taken for granted my hand in yours, once held on a beach, in a jeep, or in your room your hand now empty by your side and I, empty inside iii. the small dose of happiness I once took has finally expired and comes but twice a year if then it has faded like the last act like a painting like the ink in a pen joy: has been zapped away and has dried up either by the chill of New York or the heat of New Providence and any sweet song I sing brings a sting to accompany my salty tears

D’Anthra Adderley All great artists sleep with their muses… She closed the door that she had met open behind her. She stepped mid-way into the living room that he had made into a library with stacks of books on the floor and VHS cassettes of old Western cowboy films and Latin American romances, among other classics like Casablanca and Sense and Sensibility. The house was modest, heartening, and reminiscent; the yard, overgrown with grassy weeds and flowers. Without a word, she unbuttoned then shed her floral pattern print blouse on the floor. She had rehearsed this moment countless times; thinking of the perfect words that should or would accompany what she was about to do. She thought of phrases like “take me” or “I’m yours” but they were so cliché, she could imagine some early twentieth century film actress saying them. But it was the twenty-first and what she was about to do was life-changing. She had to be original. She had to say something poetic. Her skin was bare save for the lingering scent of lavender that subtly diffused the room and entered his nostrils. Hearing the door close, he came out of his bedroom into the living room. He stopped. His eyes fell, and his expression said everything his mouth did not. Mentally gathering her breasts, his hands still at his sides, he began to paint a picture of what the rest of her might look like. Her sight was too much for him to bear. He took one step forward watching her movements. She noticeably shuddered. For five years, she had refused gifts, money, and almost one thousand poems that Michael had used to woo her. Poems which included every explicit detail of what he intended to do to her. He recently concluded that all of his attempts had been in vain, but that did not stop him from writing of her. Michael was sixty, three times her age. He would do anything for her. He thought of himself as a fool in love. Elizabeth, a poet and muse was deeply conflicted. She was in love with another man, Robert and although his feelings were not as intense as hers, Robert loved her too. Michael's desire for Elizabeth however, could not be matched. Michael was considerate, caring, sensitive (perhaps too sensitive), but most importantly he was a visionary. Robert was mysterious, strong, confident, and she felt safe with him but at times his love felt lukewarm. She wished Robert could love her with only half the intensity of Michael. She had been in a relationship with Robert for four years but she had met him five years ago around the same time she met Michael. Michael, who had been named the poet laureate for her country, was her instructor at a poetry workshop she had taken the summer of 2005. She loved his poetry and admired his work. He was her mentor. Michael shared his talent and his substance with Elizabeth. Michael adored Elizabeth for reasons even she didn’t understand. Time and time again he would tell her tenderly, “Elizabeth, you go right through me.” Since that time they had remained friends. Elizabeth was eager to be a part of the circle of poets and other artists in her community. There were only a few people that she could truly express herself with and they were a part of this group. It was Michael’s conviction that Elizabeth could never be a real poet if she didn’t rid herself of what he called society’s “hang ups”. He told her that all great artists had seen their muses naked and had gone as far as to sleep with them. Picasso, Van Gogh, Goya…He felt that there was a need for them both to confront the taboo topic of age difference in relationships. He would say, “Elizabeth make a contribution to art for once” or “We don’t choose who we fall in love with” or “Darling, the fact that you turn me on is simply nature” or “How am I to write of you if I have not seen all of you?” 21

At that moment, she noticed the growing erection. He took one step closer to her and holding her side gently brought her near him. Her skin was like the flesh of rose petals. She could hear his beating heart. Hers was in her throat. Everything was still. The school kids that were playing near the bus stop just in front of his house had ceased to exist. And every sound, the sound of the car horns, even the sound of her breathing had silenced. She was either about to die or the end of the world had arrived. He reached in to kiss her and she turned her head away instinctively. This was harder than she had thought it would be. “Elizabeth”, Michael said, exasperated. She stared back apologetically. In his heart he prayed that this wouldn’t be a letdown. He could only think “uhh my woman-child”. She reached out to hold his face with trembling hands. Michael’s face was remarkably smooth for a man of his age and he was in good shape, his diet vegetarian. She moved into him preparing for a kiss. “Thud ThudThud!” The knock at the door shook Elizabeth. She picked her blouse up from the floor and held it to her. Her heart was now audible. “Who’s that at your door?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t know but it doesn’t matter,” he whispered desperately but truthfully. Elizabeth started to button her blouse. Michael reached for her hand and with an elevated voice said, “Please don’t!” “Hello Michael, are you there? I thought we could finish our talk,” the female voice at the door said after hearing the voices on the other side of the door. Elizabeth looked at him curiously, “I’m leaving…” Seeing that she had gotten dressed anyway, Michael opened the door. There were two women holding Watchtower magazines. They were dressed in long black dresses accessorized with handbags that held Bibles. Michael said under his breath “Fuck” actually wanting to scream it, which wouldn’t have surprised Elizabeth (to her Michael’s only religion was poetry and his only god much to her discomfort was her). Elizabeth slipped away between the two women and beyond the purple bougainvillea that hung low over and around the archway of the porch. She disappeared as angelically and abruptly as she had appeared. There were two teddy bears in Elizabeth’s bed: a white teddy that was really a dog that Robert got her knowing her love of dogs and a brown bear that Michael had gotten her for her birthday. When she got home that day she sat down on her bed, then turned to look at each stuffed animal. She picked up the brown bear, held onto it tightly then she got up and sat him at the back of her closet. Only the dog remained. Michael mourned. He knew the moment might never come again. Elizabeth had been so daring and courageous. The woman that she was or had become was amazing and frightening. What she had done was so life-affirming that he felt he could live 40 more years for a chance to 22

see her like that once more. Sighing, Michael invited the two women in to finish the heated dialogue they had started a week before about “Art and Ethics.” Obediah Smith Rats among the Rafters No body´s there to feed my rats their poison no body´s there to feed my rats to cats there will be an abundance of them, I fear when I return right about now they must be having my house to themselves they must by now be assuming ownership again what is there though for them to eat without me without the portions of what I'd open and leave without the portions I am unable to make use of and dispose of oh, their rat music rats running rats fighting in the ceiling among the rafters forming the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of the second storey of my house my house, the rats' house this conversion this transfer of ownership in love, in Mexico 23

away too long my house going to the rats going to the dogs my yard, long before I left returned to forest full of trees Obediah Smith Egg White for Nsakala Emmanuel i. milk-white girl has bewitched me with her magic how she is able to dance so amazingly is a mystery--utterly delicious beauty of it, of this video, unbearable one I favour most of the many I love of dr. Sakis and his sexy sexy dancing girls ii. what electric wind, in her little red skirt, to intoxicate me, like red wine in a bottle she out pours freely, so freely, so much, the glass overflows she spills some of her but I lap her up lick her up, lick her down lick her down gently iii. able to electrocute me when she winds I wish she would, I'd die happy milk-white girl in her red skirt, could shake every penny out of my piggy bank iv. milk-white girl to make milkshake with egg yolk, egg white to mix in, to make music to make love last, to make love strong 24

milk-white girl I can drink always I can drink all of Obediah Smith City Market of Deanka Saunders still unable to get her e-mail address she has one now now nearer to something, nearer her, nearer home, nearer together or are we I have her last name also now but not her e-mail address she was abrupt about it, about the fact that her computerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s down it will be down indefinitely, she told me pointless providing me her address sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be unable to get at it, at anything I might provide showed her my two new books with pretty covers with their nice jackets told her my poems of her will eventually be in books like these she laughed then more emotional than Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d ever seen her used to her being sedate, so concentrated upon cashing, collecting, giving change Obediah Smith Stones for Stephen to hear pang-a-lang they throw stones through glass children in uniforms passing from and to school

stones through glass are like musical instruments bows across stringed instruments we break silence with there are voices, sounds, a pitch so high, able to shatter glass houses abandoned, these pink twins their wooden porch pillars their wooden doors, dark-green their front windows, shattered glass up until not long ago clothes on lines, on these two front porches in the teeth of pins the wind would dry no longer are these two houses sight for sore eyes black eyes after battle these two houses, opposite the church perched upon a hill, in the bend in the road dark inside no one residing or can reside within a building with windows with shattered glass children with stones, out to make drama, to make mischief out to make music on their way home Obediah Smith Electric Trick for T.L.C. like that butcher in Fiddler On The Roof I can end with a broken heart whatever the outcome though, though I am as old as your dad, 26

I’ll ask for your hand about time I had a warm roast beside me in bed about time we were side by side beneath sheets, like toast, while we’re still warm Victoria Sarne Regret The air is redolent with regret. It hangs in the space between us, palely sad and wistful like limp washing on the line on a windless day, longing to be heard but not a word is spoken. This NO - thing, a lonely hunter empty-handed haunts the silence in my mind. Victoria Sarne Reflections of an Older Woman nearing another birthday. Now that I have journeyed into maturity, I am in that illustrious, occasionally dubious, league of ‘older’ women - the ones that have passed beyond the fashionably French “certain age” into pensionable status. Although most of the time I find it a ‘comfortable-in-my-skin’ place to inhabit, at the same time it provokes a fairly frequent re-assessment of or adjustment to the pros and cons of age and aging. The un-made- up face reflected in the mirror in the morning is not a doppelganger but me and often seems to look tired whether I am or not; on the other hand when I look at old photos of a much younger me I wonder at the smoothness and serenity of that face. I have been lucky in the looks department and am frequently told that I look years younger than my real age. I take good care of my health and body but although I am fit and healthy I see an almost daily subsidence in the physique that is distinctly unappealing. How much does all that matter? I am not sure. There is a schizophrenic tilt in my mind that hovers between a serene confidence of who I am now and an occasional ‘if-only’ longing to retain those looks when I could 27

wear a mini skirt or some other outrageous piece of fashion and stop traffic. Where is that girl, that woman that I used to see every morning in the mirror? I’ve finally come to the conclusion that ageing, inevitable as it is, is sometimes depressing not just for vanity or ego but because it seems like a loss. A loss of familiar, recognisable, identifying features, the face and the body that I am familiar with, grew up with and eventually grew into; the loss of a person I know physically although not a loss of internal identity as I am very sure of who I am. Yet nothing matches any more; the outside does not match my inside, so when I look in the mirror I see a disconnect that seems to have occurred between the physical, the intellectual and the emotional self. Neither my mind nor my heart appears to have simultaneously boarded this train - they are back on the platform living and functioning in my head and heart as if I were still forty. Or perhaps it’s simply that age seems to have arrived much too quickly and much too soon whilst I wasn’t looking. Benefits, disadvantages? Of course, an enjoyable, sometimes laughable, sometimes dismaying mixture of both. I enjoy being able to get ‘senior‘ prices at the gym, museums, galleries and the movies - but on the rare occasions when I take advantage of the Seniors’ line at the bank or elsewhere, I get more than my share of dirty looks by people supposing that I am merely being selfish and trying to jump the line. Sometimes when I’m challenged by someone else in line I’m compelled to justify my presence by announcing my age with the ensuing sounds of disbelief and questions as to how I do it. The upside? I like that my opinion is often sought and is respected. I feel blessed that I was able to enjoy bringing two children into adulthood but am equally happy that I now no longer have the daily responsibility of their nurture. I love that I have more women friends than previously and am no longer considered a ‘threat’ to their boyfriends or husbands. I like that I have at long last learned that it is O.K. to be kinder and less harsh to myself, although the unrealistic but hammered into me desire to be perfect still lurks in the background. I find it extraordinary that some people, even friends, make me the unwitting recipient of some of their frankly surprising and intrusive expectations and commentary. Their views are at complete odds with my thinking as despite being younger they seem to have settled prematurely into old age - long before I am ready to do so. They have no trouble indicating that I need or should expect less in terms of personal relationships or life in general although those with overly busy or less than happy married lives are envious of my chosen solitary status. In particular they seem to think that I, having made a definite choice to be single, should not now have a change of heart or any expectation that this current state could change. I have been told, more frequently of late, it seems, that older women are supposed to ‘settle’ for things, accept the status quo and learn to slow down, and, I assume, be grateful for any small mercies. This I don’t understand for my 40 year old (or less) mind says ‘why do they think I should lose interest in living life to the full if I want? If there is no movement, no change, how will I know I am still living?’ As for love, don’t even look for it they admonish, much less expect to find it or feel it - it’s ‘too late’. This is more than irritating because it’s irrational and has no basis 28

in fact. The need and the desire for love and friendship, romantic or otherwise, does not diminish with age. It remains a fundamental human need, the degree of which depends on the individual. What is relevant is one’s desire and ability to stay fully engaged with life at every level. Who doesn’t want this? I don’t argue with them because I know that most of them will arrive at similar conclusions as they age and, as someone famous once said, ‘Living well is the best revenge.’ I have a news flash for anyone who is feeling complacent, self-satisfied or smug, stuck on a treadmill of their own making, blind because they are afraid to see; or the young who are not yet wise enough to leave room for doubt within their certain judgements - life will always surprise you. I don’t look for love specifically but I hope that if it comes, it does not come pussy-footing in on velvet paws. Some things haven’t changed from that young girl I used to be - I am still a romantic and I still have a nearly inexhaustible appetite for learning and fresh experiences. I want life or love or a slice of both - a grand love, a great love, a mighty love to come roaring in in great clod-hopping boots - not for a quick thrill or a burst of excitement but to be touched by a force of nature. Why would anyone assume that passion is only for the young possessors of untouched hearts and bodies? I am disappointed by my ageing body, by skin that is no longer firm, by lines that betray my age. Make no mistake though, neither my heart nor my head betray me – they are steadfast. The lines of my life may be written on my face but lines of love are still deeply engraved in my heart to be recalled at will sometimes so exquisitely sweet that it is hard to say whether it is joy or pain. I have learned and do believe that if we live an intentional life in every aspect, our capacity for wisdom, tolerance and love, in the spiritual as well as emotional sense, increases with our years and experiences until it is infinite, we become whole and we are the better for it. So, as I celebrate my life and another imminent birthday, I am reminded of Rhett Butler’s words: “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

FEATURED WRITER: CARLYON BLACKMAN .

Although deeply interested in Barbadian life and the Barbadian landscape, Carlyon sees herself as a ‘global watcher’ – looking at this wounded, but beautiful world from the vantage point of her little rock. Hence, many of her poems take on larger, more universal concerns far beyond her early writing as an introverted school girl winning the inaugural Irving Burgie Literary Award as well as NIFCA prizes for poetry. Carlyon considers poetry as more than a passion; it is a way of life – a path to see in and see out her hopes and fears - which is why she re-emerged in the early 2000s as a ‘poet’ writing in a great rush of creativity as though her life depended on it. Her work appears in The Caribbean Writer, St Somewhere Journal, tongues of the ocean, Poui, Bim and As Us. Her poetry collection, Ars Poetica, won 2nd prize in the 2012 Frank Collymore Literary Endowment Awards. She works in the Barbados Community College Library and can often be found at her home “Windrush”, Bentham’s, St. Lucy playing possum with the ‘love of her life’, an old dog named Drew.

Black Ice We spend our whole lives trying to build A nest big enough to hold every twig That looks as if it would belong. We meet, we mate, we fall in love, We make little replicas of ourselves; We live a life, and leave the rest to fate. Somewhere in that cornucopia of wood Black ice lies in places where birds’ feet Have no grip or poise or understanding. We cannot depend on the brittleness Of nature to sound a warning of earth’s thaw; How did we never teach ourselves to swim? 30

To Be that Beautiful Girl To be that beautiful girl looking with complete trust at a man old enough to be her father. His touch is balm for the bruising she sustains searching for her own bright star to light the way towards her atonement. He folds her pain inside himself, feeling sorry for what she must endure, understanding this as her due - what he must do - to be the first knife act of love her beauty cannot save her from the theatre of her own disaster. And had you known then, as now, what he was after, would you have stayed helplessly in the wings reliving the applause as his velvet paw rent the heart of a girl young enough to be his daughter. Balancing Act A sly of green monkeys lives in the gully behind my house. On mornings I hear them practising their high volume balancing act, swinging from fence to tree to roof to cloud and back with babies-in-arms and grandparents in tow disturbing the blackbirdsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; songs of praise with their otherworld chatter, echoing greenly. The salmon-tot retriever next door has given up barking; they know his range of motion does not extend beyond the radius of the rope. They have the run of the place, the life planned out according to each age, each means, each station. And so it was after clearing out and tilling soil for planting, specific to season, preference, truce they raided the grounds before dew had a chance to get acquainted with leaf buds and tender shoots. In that moment I realized the consequence of futile action is equivalent to wanton spoil... No mango, soursop, pear, cassava, yam or sweet potato will ever fruit and flower in my yard. I grow Styrofoam, cardboard, plastic wrap and tin relishing sustenance that comes from within.

Her Wholesome Goodness Green Everything When a woman says she’s tired cooking she’s not too thrilled by sex. Both tasks are performed when the heat of dormant fires are brought to boil of necessity something she’s accustomed doing, something she’s gotten used to doing by reflex. On principle, she dislikes the assumption of soft and runny; the just-add-water-and-shake-well-before-serving convenience of anything pulled apart and thickly spread over her wholesome goodness green everything. If she survives the crispy flakes and syrupy dyes they stuff inside themselves before each guilty meal, they’ll figure out using artifice as a substitute is common practice among lovers and chefs. Borrowing Privileges You... over there... slim dark volume of poetry wedged in adult fiction between Concise Oxford and King James versions can I borrow you for a moment, are you available for a Danish and a coffee? I want to tease your 12 point sans serif font, rub my fingers along your sturdy spine, caress your deckle edge, feel my way inside your colour illustrations. Let me sniff your sizzling preface; between your sly acknowledgements and tight index, I want to wrestle with your familiar insights on travel, cooking, war. You make me want to lick your tender pages from verso to recto, memorizing smell of damp sweet earth oozing out of every chapter... I knew someone like you but we lost contact in reference somewhere near too reserved, long past general circulation and now that you are here for the limited time we have together to open up and turn over a new leaf marking time and pages would you care to settle any outstanding dues before you take me in my arms or would you prefer it if I found some new interest first. 32

Rock

Paper

Scissors

In Six Men’s Bay, a lone fisherman launches a moses to seize the day’s first catch of flying fish. The boning knife flirting madly with the peek-a-boo morning light urges him to reel in pretty ning-ning girls with practised lines, the oft-used bait and tackle spurned by politic old wives. When evening docks, stale-drunk, gutted by his haul of nothing to show for time spent in idle surf, our hero waits for the burn of white rum to find its own circuitous path. Tonight there is no need to blow the conch for bounty spilling slick-raw out the ocean; there are other fish to fry in these squatters’ shacks: the corner church bearing witness to the sands’ encroachment, the concrete monoliths’ conjuring of the gullible sky while moorings shift and break away from under dusty calloused feet. He prays the native shoals return from sabbatical; barbers, grunts and chubs may do, but testing warm waters in the Far East will threaten his fishing grounds one angle at a time with containment by the solitary hook, the brim-filled net. Talking Head I shaved my head of locks and suddenly no-one saw the irregularity of my features: my ears’ astuteness, my eyes’ intelligence, my acute awareness of each breath, my high brow of perspicacity, my lips’ refusal to have me labeled another enlightened head. When I left my murdered dreads underneath the barbarous chair, I felt no remorse at their dying, at the sad consequence of them lying there. My neck and spine no longer carried the weight of dissidence; I passed checkpoints without pat-down or inquiry until I heard my dreads were sold to an ideology trying to pass. I am sentenced to hard labour growing my pride again. It is not matted all the way through. It still has its fly-away ends. No immediate plans of submission. No discernible shape or style but this talking head is fiercely taking root and being mindful. 33

A Dog’s Life The last time any of us saw the bitch she was on her haunches by the door whining, hoping we would snitch pass her what we’d rather not chew or swallow. Locked away inside his den Dad corrected papers, defended his pet theories and left to our devices we were as unfettered as our leashes would allow, champion and bereft as a hermit turtle or excommunicated bird. We may not have been inclined to weep at the sight of freedom neutered for its own good, for by not understanding how deep the process of conforming goes in to taming prized flesh, hopeful of a ‘best in show’, we pissed all over, marking territory, thinking when would we ever get the nerve to go such lengths to escape our master’s hospitality. Then we didn’t care what these words would cost to reclaim Mom’s reputation... “a friendly pup last seen on a day like today is lost to us, our brave Rover, sharp watchdog and excellent companion. A generous reward offered, no questions asked by her loving family who misses her and can’t rest till she comes back.” Unlike my defection... they found me holed up in a shack, going back to back with some guy I met, slick and shimmering like a bubble. This is your very last chance, they said, your final crap at a dog’s life. Stay, they said, save us all a heap of trouble.

The Case of the Suicidal Fish Everything you’re ever meant to be converges on a point. You’re set apart from reality by a shield of mossy tempered glass when it hits you in the gut that what you see in front of you – a girl in a clingy off-shoulder blouse deconstructing Chardonnay, a man entreating tapas and hot wings from the wait staff scuttling back and forth taking orders for a price – there will always be 34

a resident patient in your tank. For there you are and here I am, our eyes connected by a watery thread. Perhaps you’d longed to run for glass president or start your own business selling jewelry made to scale, maybe you meant to navigate the world demonstrating how to screw the whale but you got distracted by the pop-ups on your screen and continued searching manically through that bogus shipwrecked house with false doors that lead to nowhere. You have no concept of the hook or bait, the thing that keeps you in your place. You ascend to the wet-break when the monster has sprinkled your BF’s flakes onto the slick oiled surface. You cannot cut your fins or slit your gills, take an overdose of crud and CO2, jump in front a speeding snail, hang glide from off the algae; you cannot swim too close to the barbed edge where desperation meeting inertia for the first time demands a parallel response. You’ve no idea how to stop swimming? Do you? END OF FEATURED WRITER: CARLYON BLACKMAN

Joy Murray Family Home Rosine stared through her bedroom window. Her garden was overrun with weeds. Nut grass, so difficult to get rid of, had taken hold again. But these signs of neglect were a blur. The only thing on her mind was the turning point that Sunday exactly 10 months ago, when they came home from church, without Papa. Her sister, Merlese, had sputtered, ‘That woman,’ as she thumped her gold bag on the red, formica-top table in their modernized kitchen. She flopped on to one of the four matching chairs and squeezed off her white, too tight shoes. ‘That woman, she got Pa bewitch. You see how she playing she going fall? Hypocrite! In the Lord’s house to besides.’

‘Mer, hush nuh’, Rosine hissed and put on the kettle. ‘And I hear her name is Gloria, Gloria Belle, come back from New York.’ Merlese snorted through flared nostrils, ‘Gloria, my ass. She name Jezebel. Every Sunday morning, you see she pompasetting up she bony self, in that fancy dress from over ’n away, she waist tight-tight like vice? Communion and she in a black dress, like she at a funeral!’ Rosine sat, lifted the skirt of her light blue dress with the white collar, and pulled her sister’s foot up on to her lap. She began to massage the bloated ankle, her slender hands cool and firm. At last, Merlese relaxed to the smooth strokes, her eyes sleepy and her mouth soft. Rosine was like Papa. A home-bird; she kept herself to herself. Merlese took after their mother – always out and about, mixing up and making friends. Rosine, at thirty-nine, was two years younger, but always careful about what she said; sometimes it was best to keep quiet. Merlese just went on and on: ‘That woman have Pa tie up with she dirty tricks…the two of them together and up in their seventies…Cuh dear, some people don’t got no shame…Rose, you don’t understand what going on.’ But Merlese gave voice to Rosine’s own deepest fears. She could not remove the image of Papa rushing across the aisle to support Gloria as she stumbled. He had held her arm under his, close to his heart, to guide her out of the church and down the road to where she lived – without looking back. ______________________ The family home was a modest wood house – two-roof and a shed-roof – one of a row of identical homes along the side of the road that ran through the village. Each occupied its own house-spot, with enough space for a small front garden and a back yard, and was separated from its neighbours by a low hedge and galvanize paling at the back. This was where Papa and his sister and brother had been born and raised. Aunt May had trained as a nurse and lived in England. Uncle Monty became a seaman and could never settle down anywhere. Now he lived on and off down by the gully with a woman and her five children – the first, a boy who left school early to lime on the block, and the last two little ones were supposed to be his. So, that left Papa at home and, after they got married, Mamma came to live with him. The girls were born and grew up. Merlese went to live in town and Rosine was at work every day, so there wasn’t much for Mamma to do, and she was real restless. So, when Granpa – that is her father – died and all the money came to her, she set about building her dream house – a bungalow. The walls went up block by block around the old wood house. There was so much dust and confusion. Papa coughed a lot, but didn’t complain. The front house became the ‘living room’, according to Mamma, repainted in ‘antique white’. Out went the china cabinet, the blinds, the linoleum and Papa’s dear old, brown armchair; in came the ‘three piece suite, coffee table and drapes with palm-leaf motif’. She bought the vacant lot behind and the ‘guest room’ was added – ‘en suite’, if you please. The kitchen was stripped and Luxury-Style-Homes Inc. brought in. She had started on her ‘master bedroom’ with matching curtains and bedspreads in ‘lavender with fine magenta stripe’; two bedspreads, Rosine could almost hear her mother say, because two single beds were ‘more decent’ at their stage in life. Papa retreated to the shed in the yard. He called it the ‘out-house’ and sat there for hours with Uncle Monty, who snuck in through the back gate. They would sip their Old Gold and talk about

cricket and ‘politricks’, and joke about how the ‘new minister of gutters and gullies’ mess up fixing the bridge. Sometimes they lowered their voices so Rosine couldn’t hear. One evening, Papa winked and whispered, ‘Rosie, guess what? The money run out. Restoration done; deliverance come.’ They laughed, sharing one of their special moments. Rosine’s bedroom survived untouched. A combination of exhaustion and frustration at having to cut short her ‘interior decoration’ project sent her mother’s blood pressure way up. The first stroke put her to bed; the second, despite Rosine running up and down from bedroom to kitchen to bathroom with bowls of water and washcloths, cups of tea and soup, glasses of coconut water and lemonade with bitters, and cans of floral spray to take away the musty smell, well … that was the end. She was in the kitchen when it happened. ‘Mamma’, she quipped, ‘peppermint tea, ginger tea, cocoa tea … or bush tea?’ There was no answer. ______________________ Together, she and Papa went through it all – the endless phone calls and visits from neighbours with condolences, and the funeral service with hymns and psalms and verses chosen by Mamma. After Merlese went back to town with her bawling and carrying on, they slipped into an easygoing routine. At twenty past eight every morning, Rosine left for work at the local primary school where she sorted and re-shelved library books and generally helped out. At home, Papa loaded the washing machine and hung out the clothes. She pressed and folded them. He did the shopping and she cooked – steam flying fish with rice and peas, with her home-made seasoning, was his favourite. Saturday mornings she mopped and dusted while he pottered about in the shed. On Sundays, they went to church together. They spent their evenings in the kitchen and hardly ever went into Mamma’s living room. They brought back in Papa’s armchair from the shed. Rosine patched over the holes where the stuffing was coming out and cleaned it up as best she could. It made her think of a faithful, stubborn old donkey, sagging in the middle. They moved the television into the kitchen, but she decided to leave the wedding photo that stood on top of it. Papa, slim and dark and good-looking, looked out of the picture into her eyes, with a wry smile. He was almost hidden by Mamma’s frothy white dress. As a child, Rosine used to look at it with her right eye shut and her head tilted to the left to cut her mother out of the picture. As the kitchen clock showed seven, Papa would turn on the television and watch the news. He liked to read to her from the paper as she washed the wares, but she only half listened to the goings-on in the outside world. Much of the time they were quiet. They knew each other so well, there was no need to say out loud what they were thinking. But for months now, Papa had hardly been home. When he was, he hardly ate anything, how ever she tried to tempt him with new recipes. He still drank the tea she made for him though. Squinting through the corner of her eye, Rosine saw the strain on his forehead, his hunched shoulders, how he struggled to get out of his armchair. She held back, knowing he would wave her away if she tried to help. Rosine no longer felt sure of her own small world. She was so stressed out from not knowing. ‘Papa?’

‘Mmmm’. ‘Papa … could I ask you a question?’ She sounded like one of the cheeky, hard-ears kids from school, ‘Miss, Miss, can I ask you a question?’ Rosine waited, then plunged. ‘‘The lady from church … is she OK? Maybe going back to New York?’ ‘No. She can’t’, he said, glaring straight at her. Rosine winced. ‘Good night, Papa’, she whispered. She went to her bedroom and shut the door behind her. __________________________ One evening, Papa came home early. They ate together – Rosine picked at her food. They watched the news – Rosine hardly heard a thing. She was allowing herself to think that she and Papa were moving back to normal. A warm, homely feeling came to her. Papa folded the newspaper and patted the arm of his chair. ‘Come sweet girl, we have to talk.’ She perched beside him. He put his hand over hers with a gentle squeeze. ‘Rosie, is no life for you here. That … that therapy thing, you want to do. Is not too late, you know. You should go. Go to England.’ ‘But Papa, you and me …’ ‘I speak to Aunt May already. She expecting you. Next month. And I will buy the ticket for you to go’. He had it all planned, she realized in shock. Rosine’s hand trembled as she eased it out from under his. She struggled towards the kitchen window, her back to him. ‘She have a spare room for you’. Rosine heard his footsteps cross the kitchen floor and out through the front door. She clung to the window ledge, trembling and gasping for breath. _____________________ Ever since she was a teenager, Rosine knew that she, not Merlese, would be the one to stand home and look after Papa and Mamma in old age. She had never really thought about how her life might have been different. She secretly rather liked the idea of belonging on the shelf, like a treasured family bible with a silver ribbon to mark the page. Merlese came back most – but not every – weekend. She slept in the guest room. After all, it had its own bathroom. So they moved her bed out of the room the sisters had shared as children. It was really Rosine’s now. And no way was Merlese going to stay. Home life was too dull for her. She always caught the four o’clock bus back to town on Sundays. Good thing too – the way she demanded Papa’s attention and tired him out with her discussions on politics and other outside problems. And she never put things back where they belonged. Regularly, on Monday evenings, Rosine would hum her favourite hymns as she re-placed cups and plates according to size, sorted forks mixed in with spoons and tidied the fridge. 38

‘Tidy-up time again?’ Papa would smile. Even men like Uncle Monty, who had left and migrated to Brooklyn or Birmingham, had outside women and children all about – even they could come back to the house where they were born and raised. But he belonged down the road with his family there, and anyway, he wouldn’t recognize his childhood home. Rosine was sure he had put not one foot inside since Mamma moved in. She never even spoke his name; to her he was ‘that wutless brother of yours who can’t keep his tail quiet’. Everything the way it should be, a family home tradition worked out and passed down from seed to seed. Until Ms. Gloria Belle came back from New York. _________________________ It was five o’clock on Sunday morning and Rosine had been awake all night. It was the day after she found the letter in a shoe box in Papa’s closet. It had on a US stamp and was addressed to Uncle Monty. Inside was another envelope with her father’s name and marked CONFIDENTIAL. It was only one page in scrawly handwriting like sticky spider legs about how life might have been different if she had never left, and how she was ‘unwell’ and ‘coming home’. At the bottom of the page was ‘with affection from your childhood friend, Gloria Belle’. Rosine sat huddled on her bed, turmoil churning through her mind, the empty pages of her diary open on her lap. She had tried through the night to write it all down, to make sense of it, but it only became more real and she crossed out what she’d written, tearing the page with her pen. How could he let that wicked woman turn his mind? How could he even think of sending her – his favourite daughter – away? She could see them – the two of them – together as children, holding hands, sitting at their desks at primary school, her school where she now worked. She saw them growing up together. She saw the woman twirling and laughing in Mamma’s fancy new living room, while she herself was alone, cold and gray in a ‘spare room’. She heard the ‘go, go’ of his voice over and over. Merlese burst in. ‘Rose, Rose, Pa didn’t come home last night. His bed, he didn’t sleep in it.’ She paused. Then, ‘I had enough of this foolishness. I going down there and find out what going on’. Rosine snapped her diary shut and leapt up. ‘NO. No, you can’t do that’. ‘And why not, pray tell?’ ‘It’s none of your business’. They stayed home from church and quarreled for most of the day. Papa used to tell Merlese that not even a force ten hurricane could make him change his mind. Well, when push came to shove, Rosine had her own way of being stubborn. She finished off the argument, ‘he would never speak to you again’. Merlese calmed down and went back to town. ________________________ Rosine waited until five minutes after midnight. She wrapped a black shawl over her dark blue dress and crept into the night. There was no moon, but she kept to the shadows away from the street lights, and made her way across the pasture and over the bridge. She knew the way well. It was not the first time she had followed her father. 39

The small, wood house was set back from the road in darkness under a massive breadfruit tree. She stepped through the damp, long grass to avoid the crunch of gravel on the path and between the clay pots of tangled, half-dead plants. She hesitated, listening for the slightest sound. She edged her way around to the back of the house, holding on to the jalousies, hand over hand. Through a window, in the dim flickering light of an oil lamp, she saw her father. He sat bent over the bed on which the woman lay. She looked gaunt and gray, her mouth clenched. A shadow had fallen across his face. Rosine bit hard on her bottom lip, but she couldn’t stop the pounding in her chest. An inner voice insisted she must leave. If he looked up and saw her, it would be the end. The woman opened her eyes and looked at him. Then she blinked and nodded, very slightly. He slipped his hand under the pillow, lifted her head and held the glass of cloudy, white liquid as she drank. With the edge of the sheet, he wiped her mouth. He held her hands and leaned forward to kiss her cheek, and her lips. Rosine fled. ______________________ Rosine curled up in Papa’s armchair and made herself breathe to the rhythm of the kitchen clock – in for three ticks, out for three. It was twenty past four in the morning when he came home. He unwrapped her shawl and frowned. ‘Mmmmm, how you so cold? And wet too? And you mouth bleeding?’ He ran the corner of a kitchen towel under the tap and she let him dab her lower lip. She heated the tea made with bay leaf, ginger and other special ingredients, and handed him a cup. He sat at the kitchen table and sipped the steaming tea as if in a trance. As morning broke, he breathed deeply and squeezed his eyes between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Rosine, it done. No need for you to vex yourself no more.’ Linking her arm in his, Rosine helped Papa to his feet. It was like holding an empty sleeve. She led him into his room and closed the door. She walked across the passageway to the guest room and closed that door too. Inside her own bedroom, she opened her diary and wrote out a neat list. Call school – report sick Cook – chicken soup with dumplings Garden – pull nut grass, cut back hibiscus, plant thyme/parsley Order recliner armchair with press-button, lift-up seat and footrest There was time to rest. Rosine changed into her white nightdress and lay on her bed. She ran the tip of her tongue across her lip. It had already begun to heal. A strange sense of serenity began to glow inside her. It flowed up over her throat and across her forehead. She closed her eyes and embraced its power. Although they would never speak about it, she and Papa would always be at home together with their secret. She would take care of him as only she knew how.

A-dZiko Simba

Beyond out there where the red sound system blasts heathen sermons into the courtyard of the Evangelical Apostolic crouched in the curve of the road thrusting out over the sea down there the waves crashing into fragments of songs barely recalled the unseen wind the trees lean from all bent and humbled below the sun burned path beyond the horizon out there see out there spirit out there soul. A-dZiko Simba Enough Pearl counted the silver four times. It was exactly enough. Exactly. She rocked back and forth on her heels savouring the scent of freshly grated nutmeg conspiring with coconut milk to give up their secrets to the bubbling pot of plantain porridge knowing it was enough and she would have no choice but to serve her. It was not Monday or Tuesday, not Wednesday, not any of the last days and weeks when all she could do was linger at the back door breathing in the sweet smell of the porridge and invoking the luxury of sitting with her own bowl cradled in her lap as she fanned the flies away while it cooled and the voice of Gran-Gran snapping sharp orders to get all the children from under her feet and off to school. The woman made her wait, as she knew she would. Pearl didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t care, Massa God looked after the sufferer and the woman could screw her face as small as a pin; today she had enough.

Pearl had slapped the coins onto the counter as triumphantly as one of the old domino players that gathered in the parking lot behind First Commercial Bank. Slapped them down and demanded the porridge like a white woman. Demanding, like a white woman with a houseful of maids she could not tolerate. Of course, the woman had taken her time to slide the coins one by one off the counter, examining each as if there was a real chance they have been freshly minted in some tenement yard. Gran-Gran had a voice so rough grown men jumped to her bidding and her hands so broad and worn one slap could knock the heartiest out cold. But into her pot Gran-Gran poured all her love. It was a love laid open to all and mouths came from every yard, any yard whenever they needed the warm embrace of her affections. For Pearl it was ritual, it was morning love and she liked to take her time but there was always some other child at her elbow, some boy leaning over her shoulder, sneaking a dip into her bowl or a wiry child, with a stuffed up nose and empty eyes standing staring at each mouthful until she relented. And no amount of pleading would be rewarded with seconds – Gran-Gran’s pot was the biggest Pearl had ever seen and, as long as she had the means, every morning it would be full to the brim with porridge that was gone in less time it took to devour a bowl of the steaming meal. When the last ten dollars remained on the counter the woman held her hand above it and let the coins she had counted tumble onto its surface and roll in all directions. A blast of anger rose up in Pearl but she swallowed hard. It was enough. She had counted it four times; the woman couldn’t draw her out. Today was not like all the other days. It was enough. The man in the pretty blue car had begun searching under the dashboard even before he brought it to a halt at the lights. She had skipped across the road and was at the side window before Donovan had figured out what was going on. That’s the way they had to do it these days – in the old days they would share, whatever they got, everyone would get a portion – nobody starved but these days, if you didn’t have eyes as sharp as a Johncrow and the speed of a rat, daag nyam yu brekfaast, lunch an suppa. The man had pulled the ashtray clear of the molding and poking it through the side window, had emptied its contents into her cupped hands. It was all she could do to keep herself from shouting ‘hallelujah’ at the top of her lungs and dancing a little jig but she couldn’t afford to give away anything, not even a hint. She had pocketed the coins while the car still stood between her and Donovan, gave the man heartfelt blessings and then sadly turned back and sauntered to the pavement in the way they all did when they had drawn a blank. As soon as the lights had changed and Donovan had skipped across the road to work the traffic heading west, Pearl slipped into the alley between the Digicel shop and the bookstore and counted the money. It came to two hundred and twenty-six dollars and fifteen cents. Immediately her whole mouth was filled with the taste of freshly boiled plantain porridge. Two hundred and twenty-six dollars and fifteen cents – a dollar and fifteen cents more than the figures she had seen neatly scripted on the white chalk board hanging above the glass counter. Quickly, before the lights changed again and Donovan’s attentions returned to the side road, she slid passed the prone body of Mad Mattie and disappeared around the corner. 42

Through the large glass window the shop looked clean, made cleaner by the unnatural glow of the fluorescent light bouncing off the tiles. Against such whiteness, her dress, with its patches of brown, its hanging threads and ripped sleeves, made her hesitate for a moment. The woman was there, all crisp and superior, presiding over the freshly baked goodies exuding a pride of ownership she had not earned. Pearl inhaled. Green plantain and spices rolling over each other in a thick soup made sweet from condensed milk. Fortified she had approached the counter and, in her best voice, ordered the breakfast she had dreamt about for weeks. The woman stared at the scattered coins for a good time, as though she were a reader determining some hapless client’s destiny. Then slowly, she raised her head, meeting Pearl eye to eye. Pearl met her gaze with defiance. They had had words before. The woman had threatened to call the police for her and if they had met each other in the anonymity of a back street somewhere downtown no one would have bet on either of them leaving it alive. In the middle distance the persistent sound of a fly bombarding one of the lights mingled with the plodding tick of the square clock perched above the entrance to the kitchen where the tap, tap, tap of a spoon against a large metal pot completed the strange orchestration. Tap, tap, tick buzz, tick, tap, buzz, buzz. One side of the woman’s mouth turned up into a little smirk and finally she spoke. ‘Not enough’ ‘Not enough? What you mean not enough? A two hundred and twenty-five dollar mi gi yu, yu teefin…’ ‘Two hundred and forty-five fi peanut porridge,’ the woman snapped back. All of the decorum she had mustered before entering the shop evaporated and Pearl let rip at the top of her voice, ‘Since when? Since when? Yu dutty liad! Yu stinking rass yu, since when?’ The woman smiled then lazily lifted her index finger to point in the direction of a sign in large type, pinned to the wall above the covered display shelves. Pearl’s angry eyes skimmed over the words. Something about management regrets, something about rising costs, something about effective from…. something, something, something. Tick, tick, tick, tick, the smile on the woman’s face, tick, tick, buzz, the gizzada and donuts, tap, tick, tap, the wheat bread and banana cake, the tea, the coffee, tick, tick, the regrets of management and the smell of the porridge and the face of Gran-Gran her body lying fully dressed on the length of board balanced on the backs of the two wooden chairs in the centre of the room, her face finally at peace. 43

She hadn’t cried then, hadn’t cried when her Aunt threw her and her belly out to fend for themselves, hadn’t cried the day she reached into the pocket of her one good bag and found nothing there but two red coins. But somehow, now, standing in the shop, twenty dollars too short, it was more than she could bear. All of it was more than she could manage and the water just rolled out of her eyes. The woman looked at her astonished then, clearly embarrassed, disappeared into the kitchen on some fabricated mission. Pearl stood at the counter and wept. Her body shook as huge sobs escaped from her mouth. Moments later the woman reappeared and scraping the coins from the counter, thrust them into Pearl’s hand and, taking her by the shoulders, swung her around to face the door. Pearl, all the fight gone from her, shuffled towards the exit, each move bringing her closer to the street, the choking dust, the madness of Mattie and the hard concrete. ‘Here,’ said the woman, stuffing a covered container into Pearl’s free hand. Quickly the woman darted back into the kitchen as Pearl lifted the container to her cheek and felt the heat, like love, caressing her face.

GUYANA PRIZE POETRY WINNERS 2012: Ian McDonald and Cassia Alphonso Ian McDonald Ian McDonald was born in Trinidad and was educated at Queen's Royal College, Port of Spain, and Cambridge University. TT junior tennis champion for many years, he played at Wimbledon, captained for Cambridge, and was Guyana's 1957 Sportsman of the Year. In 1955 he joined British Guiana's Booker Group and made his career in the sugar industry until retiring. His poems and short stories have been widely published and anthologised, and his play The Tramping Man has been frequently staged. His award-winning novel, The Humming-Bird Tree, was first published in 1969, and in 1992 was made into a BBC film shot in Trinidad. He has now won the Guyana Prize for Literature (Poetry) three times . What It Was Like Once Forever (from The Comfort of All Things, Georgetown: Moray House Trust, 2012) The perfect day is upon me. I wake to see the gleaming salmon 44

spring in the dark river of the morning, the wind full of sea-salt and garden-flower, the trees brimming slowly with green. Mongoose, snake-catcher, sleek as a seal, darts out of sight: I give him a sharp salute I give life a salute, the beauty it provides. The day progresses well, people are well-disposed, what is owed to business is efficiently transacted. At home I leap heavenwards as high as I can, not far but bravely done: my wife smiles, she shakes her head, after all I am close to seventy-five. There is no limit to our love, even death will set no limit. Our sons are content, healthy as snorting horses, they will be coming soon. I write this absurdly happy verse to tell what it was like once forever. Cassia Alphonso Born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana, she attended Hamilton College in Upstate New York where she majored in English. After graduating she returned to Guyana to work in her family's television station

Lady Lucille (from Black Cake Mix, unpublished) Yuh had to catch her early before mid-day pass, when she still had she senses. Purpley-dark puffy skin coated her face and a smile sweeter than swinging in a hammock pun a cool afternoon. She was pleasant, duff and short. Always tied a kerchief pun she head, like a propa East Indian lady. 45

The smell of coconut oil soak in flesh. Black man in she confuse her coolie skin. That mixture gave her hair some waves. Sit down pun she veranda, A bottle a white rum and Kazak. Lean the whole bottle, float it down with water. Her lips had a blackness to them. Mommy said is cause she burning the blood out she body. When she ain’t sugared up she was a jewel fuh watch sparkle. Always make you laugh. Her rock rubbing voice echoed, layering just over yours. A permanent dent on her forehead from frowning when drinking that hotness. You can’t say ‘Queh’ though she would cuss yuh to pieces. Then, when she eyes start focus again, she doubt dat such dutiness neva come from she mouth. Next noon, same thing. First a toe gone. Then a piece of she foot. Then a whole leg. Even den she would flash a smile, yuh see dat desparation, dat regret behind faded red lace, it mek yuh throat knot, yuh eyes burn. Then, ‘it’ take she whole body. She whole purplely-dark body. Excerpt from “ ‘A jewel fuh watch sparkle’: Cassia Alphonso’s poetry” by Lori Shelbourne, Stabroek News. The title of this article is taken from one of the stand-out poems in Cassia Alphonso’s GuyanaPrize-winning collection, Black Cake Mix (unpublished). ‘Ladie Lucille’ is a lingering, moving and vividly-drawn character-study of an elderly diabetic woman whose struggle with alcoholism eventually leads to her death. From its first lines, the poem has an instant appeal, which comes in part from Alphonso’s gift for creating singular, subtle characters through the use of resonant detail, and in part from the allure of her poetic voice with its careful balance of standard English and creolese: 46

Yuh had to catch her early before mid-day pass, when she still had she senses. Purpley-dark puffy skin coated her face and a smile sweeter than swinging in a hammock pun a cool afternoon. (l.1-6) Like many of Alphonso’s poems, the immediacy of ‘Ladie Lucille’ is underpinned by a poetic craftsmanship and an originality of vision that could too easily go unnoticed. The description of Lucille’s smile is so effortlessly evocative that it would be easy to miss the way it makes a connection between smile and hammock that is both visual (shape) and emotional (the pleasure both invoke), as well as the subtle use of rhythm – carried through the juxtaposition of soft ‘S’s (smile/ sweeter / swinging) and punctuating ‘P’s (purpley / puffy / pun), and the gentle halfrhyme in ‘cool afternoon’ – that make the lines as sweet to read as the smile is to see. And it is often this way with Alphonso’s poetry: the poems draw you in quickly but are not so quickly left behind: they forge images, turn phrases, and raise questions that stay with you, sending you back to the poems once and again with a growing sense of wonder. Take, for example, her description of Ladie Lucille as she starts drinking in the morning, ‘lean[ing]’ a ‘whole bottle’ of white rum and ‘float[ing] it down with water’: Her lips had a blackness to them. Mommy said is cause she burning the blood out of she body. When she ain’t sugared up she was a jewel fuh watch sparkle. Always made you laugh. (l. 17-22) Alphonso invokes Lucille as a palpably real presence, but the manner in which she does so is curiously impressionistic. Lucille has many faces. We watch her like a rising sun: catching her ‘before mid-day passes’, seeing her ‘sparkle’ one moment and burn the next (‘yuh see dat desperation, / dat regret behind faded red lace, / it mek [...] yuh eyes burn’ l.37-39). A spectrum of light, then, becomes a potent metaphor for the dynamic variations of a single personality, and for the range of emotions this personality invokes in the narrator. However, it is the description of Lucille as ‘a jewel fuh watch sparkle’ that lingers longest. Jewels are usually associated with some form of acquisitiveness: either they are proudly possessed or they invoke a desire for ownership. For Alphonso’s narrator this is not the case. She does not want to own the jewel, but rather to leave it be, to watch it sparkle. Indeed, going against the grain of conventional association, the jewel in this context becomes the perfect image for the way in which Lucille’s variegated, multifaceted being constantly eludes the grasp of her observer. Something similar happens in the final stanza of the poem as the poet describes how Lucille gradually succumbs to diabetes and to death. ‘First a toe gone. / Then a piece of she foot. / Then a whole leg. [...] Then, ‘it’ take she whole body. / She whole purpley-dark body’ (l. 33-42). As 47

Alphonso describes it, the manner of Lucille’s death is suggestively analogous to certain kinds of poetry that would devour their subject a piece at a time until that subject vanishes entirely into the poem’s description. Description and destruction, are, after all, at times closely linked. To describe a subject one way can sometimes be to erase the memory of all the other possible ways that subject might be described; just as a photograph can sometimes annihilate other memories of a person, place or experience. In Alphonso’s poem, however, Lucille does not vanish. There is no hasty conclusion, no ready moral or maxim, to explain Lucille away. Rather, the poem ends with that repetitious return of ‘she whole purpley-dark body’. Like an impression burnt onto our imaginative retina, Lucille’s ‘wholeness’ remains – fascinating, haunting, unassimilated and inexplicable; and somehow still beyond the grasp of both the poem and, if not death, then certainly oblivion. In these two moments – in the description of Lucille as a ‘jewel’, and the description of her death – ‘Ladie Lucille’ touches on a theme that recurs throughout Alphonso’s writing: the search for a form of poetry that can appreciate without consuming, possessing or dominating its subject. We might almost say that Alphonso’s poetry is peculiarly concerned with the ethics of representation. And it is a very fruitful concern; one that raises all sorts of questions about the relationship between language, representation and power – in poetry, but also in society more broadly. It demonstrates once again Alphonso’s great capacity for writing lively, engaging, and approachable poems that tackle big issues in a highly original way. It is a rare combination of attributes, and one that makes this poet ‘a jewel fuh watch sparkle’.

Janice Lynn Keepin Ms. Musgrove was tall and thin and had glasses like heavy duty windshields. Her husband had a ice cream truck he use to drive around, with stickers of what you should buy on the outside. Ice cream sandwich (dollar), fruit popsicle (seventy-five cents). Toffee bar (dollar fifty) was the best. They had chocolate on the outside and ice cream on the inside and sweet pieces inside the chocolate that went crunch. Whenever Ms. Musgrove needed to go someplace, Mr. Musgrove would drive her. If I got to ride in a real ice cream van, I would drive fast with the windows roll down and It’s A Small World crank right up. She use to keep us in the day when it was summer and Mummy gone to work, or after school when she started her nurse classes. “God one know what y’all ga et up to if I leave y’all by yourself,” Mummy told us the Sunday night before we first went to Ms. Musgrove, and Jermaine said “Awwww” in an accusing way, and shook his hand like this, meanin you in troooouuuuubbbllle so his fingers made a clicking sound, “Mummy takin God name in vain,” and I pinched him because he was gonna make Mummy mad and she wouldn’t give us any dessert, and he said “owww!” and hit me back and Mummy said “This just what I meanin,” and it was seven more years before she let us stay home alone by ourself, and even then it was mostly cause over here she didn know nobody to keep us for her. 48

Ms. Musgrove’s house was in a old part of town where the houses was small and sometimes made of wood and sometimes had sheets up instead of curtains. Hers was concrete and painted noisy blue like the sky at high noon in summer. Nobody touch it up since before I was born, and after ten years it was faded from the sun, and also peeling. She had a store on the side of the house, a little piece a building that stick out like an elbow. She never use to eat Mr. Musgrove’s ice cream and never listen to music loud in his van, or drive fast, but her shop was full of good things; Now & Later candies, which Jermaine could make last til later but I always just ate now; Funions, which make your breath stink, Fun Dip with the stick you could eat. Hot patties stayed warm all day in the silver box by the cash register, with the orange lights inside. She had a big bowl of Blow Pops she could reach over any time and turn her tongue five shades of sugar. There were twelve kinds of soda. The shop was only big enough for Ms. Musgrove to stand behind the counter, and four, maybe five children to stand in the front. It was different from the 7-11. Wasn no salad or nothing, and I think you’s go to hell for sexin an smokin so she didn have anything to help you do them kinda things. When she was in the house, Ms. Musgrove kept a little screen door latched shut on the inside with the little metal hook in a little metal loop, and when someone came to the store, they would bang on the door and rattle it in its frame and shout “Ms. Grove! Come to the shop!” and Ms Musgrove would bustle from the kitchen or living room or back yard into the shop’s back entrance, which was by the tool shed, and unhook the latch once she was inside, and sell Cherry Clan or Red Hots or Bubble Yum. One time I was playing with my dolls and I made Tessie pretend she was a girl coming to the shop, and Tessie bang on Brown Bunny’s door and shout “Come to the shop! Come to the shop!” and Mummy slap me an tell me if she ever catch me doin it again I ga get it ten times over. That same first year, was one girl who use to come in and out the shop every day all summer. Every time she come in she buy the same thing, hot patty, mint gum, root beer. Come September, she still comin in an out the store but she ain wearin no uniform, instead she wearin clothes that fit her too big. Jermaine ask Ms. Musgrove why and she tell him quiet, like prayer time, is because somebody Do a Deed to her. Jermaine start askin why again but someone bang on the shop door and holler “Ms. Groves!” jus then an Ms. Musgrove plunk a bag a pigeon peas in front of us and turn on Sesame Street tell us sit quiet an start shellin. Some time later, when Jermaine was in the yard an I was helpin her take the husks an caterpillars away from the corn, she suddenly said “You like to read?” I said “No,” then remembered to add “Ms. Musgrove.” It didn matter that I was polite; she snapped the dry end off a corn and said “Go in the living room an look on the table.” The room was mostly dark, because Ms. Musgrove liked to keep the curtains pull tight all the time, and also because she liked privacy. Thin light pushed against the netting and still find its way in; the thicker, yellow part stayed outside. I sat down on the sofa, which was covered with a big blue crochet throw. On the coffee table, her usual books were there; Are You Ready? and Comfort After Loss and Claiming the Cross. Today she had The Chosen and The End Times also set out, but next to them was a big black book with a picture of a strange thing that looked kind of like a baby. It said How You Came To Be. The baby was a funny orangey colour and had a head that was far too big, and its eyes were shut and its skin looked thin like a grape’s. It curled in on itself like a shell. Inside, the book told stories that make Jonah and the Whale sound like everyday business, like how a Daddy plants a baby seed inside where a Mummy pees from, and 49

that shows they love each other so much. I knew it was a lie because our daddy didn’t love Mummy at all, and any idiot could see that the hole down there could never let a baby out. I looked up from the book once and saw Ms. Musgrove watching from the doorway. When she saw me looking, she ducked back into the kitchen quick, and I heard the sound of the sink water running and the clanking of dishes and washing up. Later on, when I learned the missing part about babies, like how doing it is fun at first but hurts so much later, at least for the woman, I felt guilty to Mummy. I thought about Ms. Musgrove, too, who had only one son who was all grown up and gone to Atlanta. I couldn’t imagine her taking part in that type of fun. She just wasn’t that type of person; she was long and thin, and had big glasses and a serious face. One time, about two years after Ms. Musgrove first start keepin us, I came in from the living room. I had just gone to the bathroom, and when I came out, Mummy was there, in the living room. Was a half hour before Mummy was suppose to come for us. I see Mummy hand a envelope to Ms. Musgrove, an she look inside an shake her head, hand it back to Mummy. “Ain much,” Mummy said, “but I wan at least give you a little something.” Ms. Musgrove shook her head, uh uh. “I can’t do that,” Mummy said. “Time ain free, an these rude chirren—” She looked up and saw me, then, standin in the little doorway between the curtain sheet that separated the living room from the hallway that led to the bathroom, and to Ms. Musgrove’s room, which we were not to go in. The two of them stared at me: Ms. Musgrove, taller, older, bent at the shoulders, leaning forward like corn weed, her window pane glasses hiding her eyes, her hair grey and pulled sharp back from her face, and Mummy, shorter, plump-shouldered and sharp-eyed, her hair braided back, shining with gold extensions. “Go in the back yard go play with your brother.” “I put some peas in the kitchen for you to shell.” I stood in the doorway for a few more moments, because I didn know who to obey, Mummy, whose hand was harder, or Ms. Musgrove, who never smiled. When Mummy moved her head sharply, I darted for the door and let myself outside. I walked around the house very lightly, but I couldn hear nothing else. When me and Jermaine came back inside, they were both standing by the door. “Say thank you to Ms. Musgrove,” Mummy ordered, and Jermaine chimed it out like a little bell, but I couldn’t get my mouth to work. “You so disobedient,” Mummy said, pinching my arm. Ms. Musgrove leaned forward and gave me a stiff hug, then straightened up like a corn weed, still sloped at the top, still hunched a little, as if she wanted to be a little closer to the ground but didn’t know how. When we got home and I was undressing for my bath, a half pack of cherry Now & Later fell onto the bathroom floor. I picked it up and put it in my top drawer. Not too long after that, Ms. Musgrove stopped keepin us. It wasn’t because of any bad reason. Mummy got a new job, and it had her working nights so we started staying with our neighbour, Mrs. Sands. Even though she use to row plenty, it didn’t matter because in the night we only needed someplace to stretch out a sheet on the floor and shut our eye til Mummy come for us. Jermaine always sleep hard an Mummy say she always had to carry him home. I use to have to walk, but come morning I never remember how I get in my own bed. Some time after Mummy get her new job, they had a shooting out by Ms. Musgrove, and after that we definitely never gone back. Even right before we move away, Mummy drag us all over Nassau to all kinda 50

people house, but we ain stop by the shop to hail Ms. Musgrove. Our last weekend, Mummy make us write Thank You notes an carry it to church, even though she ain gone with us cause she had to stay home finish pack. Me an Jermaine gone to church by ourself, an when we reach we had to find Ms. Musgrove. She was sittin not quite in the back, but almost, fannin herself with a fan with a picture of Jesus on it. We sat behind her and every once in a while she would nod or say “Amen!” quietly to herself. One time she almost fall asleep, and Mr. Musgrove kick her gently and she start awake, look around, and then reach over and pat his leg, once. Jermaine give her the little thank you card as soon as church out. I waited by the front door to make sure he did it. She give him a little hug, very stiff, as though her body might snap in half, and held out a Fun Dip to him. When he came back, he had the pack tear open and powder all up to his nose. He say she have one for me, too. When he say “Go get it!” I pinch his arm so hard the skin almost break and then I felt sorry cause I would get in trouble when we got back home. I looked through the glass door. Ms. Musgrove was sittin back down again. She raised her hand once like she had a question in school, and wanted someone to say “Yes, Ms. Musgrove?” and her fingertips were the same height as her eyes, like she wanted to be chosen but didn’t want to be seen. I raised my hand back at her, and she put her hand back into her lap. The sun made her glasses toss light back at me, hid her eyes. Her face was long and pointed, her hair Sunday curled. We packed the last things we could take that night, and on Tuesday we left Nassau. I put my share of the snacks Mummy had bought for us in my blue backpack, and also the half pack of Now & Later from my top drawer. I thought maybe it would melt on the plane ride west, and then in the top drawer where I kept in my room in our new house, which is actually not a house, but the bottom of someone else’s house, but Vancouver never get that hot so when you keep a candy for years, it only is get hard. One time I try bite off a piece. Was like bitin a rock. Instead, I let my tongue curl round the candy until it get soft and warm. I let that piece flavour my whole mouth with sugar and cherry taste, sweetness and red. Then I put it back in the little paper what it come in, wrap it up tight, and put it back in the top drawer. Mia Cumberbatch What The Eyes Don’t See... “I ain’t gine tell you my name offica, in casing de men decide to come fuh me too, but ya know how dem do Joe Joe was realll wrong...” The loud speaker was on and the man’s voice crept from the speakers, shuddering into the corners of the small room. “Dem int had no right pounding he up so man – don’t trace muh offica, is deeeeeeep shite I would be in if dem know I talking to yuh now.” Every officer in the room sat back, waiting for some semblance of a story to begin. They needed answers, and like any other case – evidence. An eye witness, however scared, would be an asset. They say that in Bim, ‘word does travel fast because everybody knows everybody.’ But it seemed like everybody was too scared to call in and say what happened. Except this man here on the phone, skirting the issue while he battled the fear – but calling was a good sign, it took some balls to do that. Ernest’s hands shook as he held the phone to his ear. His voice tumbled from his lips in an attempt to get this ugly business over with. “It was a normal Sundie in de gap yuh know, and Sundie of all days! Nobody din think this sorta ting does happen on a Sundie. But you know de 51

date a-ready. Anyways, all the men was easing out dem house to go down to de rum shop, you know how de old girls does get on a Sundie. Talking bout don’t drink on de Lord’s day – but everybody know de bible say don’t WORK pun de lord’s day right? Who man you know could resist de rum shop pun a sundie with the oldies blazing and dominoes and rum gine ‘round easy? Show me he and I gine show you a liar. When de first blow went in nobody but me din easing out, my ole woman is a hard one but I like she plenty cause she does mek a good coucou...but time dem start landin in the rest uh lix dem had a big group out dey, and when is one man kicking he, is another one hollering to killa bulla, fuck up da anti-man, soft man like he. Now believe me I know he from a young boy and he would be chasing nuff skirts so I woulda neva suspect he fuh be a funny man yuh know..but dem taught so, so yuh neva know...” When the old man drifted off into silence the room seemed to look in on itself, the silence sitting on the chest of the officers, whether they were leaning up against the wall, or sitting on the scattered chairs. Officer Thomas Davis leaned up against the wall as casually as he could the room was now full. He was a bulla? The head found in a gutter, the stench of the streets mingling with that of the rest of the dismantled body found further down the trenches. To kill a man like that, well that was something wasn’t it? Bulla or not. Stuck leaning up against the wall, Officer Davis held his chest now tight with memories. He had been to the scene that day. The crowd had gathered around the yellow police tape, word of the grotesque scene had trickled down the street like water from a burst pipe. Everybody knew where the head was, and the precise angle of the arm that seemed to be reaching into the drain for some lost hope. The missing eye was a source of mystery and for long weeks afterwards the children searched high and low after the tape had been removed – hoping for a glimpse of the eye. He wasn’t an officer that day - he was a man who had lost everything. At work, Officer Davis was an ‘everybody’s officer.’ He was cool with the men on the block, easy with the other officers, and the women loved him but as far as anyone knew he never took them out. There had been rumours at Head Quarters once but he had squashed them by dating some girl from his district for a week. Nobody knew about the guy he was seeing and he liked to keep it that way, until the day he was called into the office. “Yeah Chief, what’s up?” Leaning over the desk they casually bumped fists, and the chief nodded to the door. “I got it man. This would got to be serious.” Officer Terrence swept across the room, closed the door, and removed his hat as he took a seat. “Look Davis, this is a touchy case and I need it handled without discrimination or we asses will be out to dry in de papers for a while, and I don’t have the time for all that shite. I need you to deal with the case with de gay fella that get kill de other day. Now if you have any objections to workin dis case, lemme know now cause I gotta put somebody on it quick. I know you cool with de block men, maybe you could get something outta the little shits. I tired hear de rest complain ‘bout dem boys ain’t talking.” Officer Davis sat back in his chair breathless. How I gine get outta dis widout the Chief knowin my business? “Chief, I had know de fella. He had went school wid me, I doan feel I should be on de case to be honest. I could talk to de men and report back to de commanding officer on de case, but don’t put me on it permanent sir. I did know he.” The Chief cocked his head to the side, “You got it sound like you and he used to roll deep though Davis. He ever try any of that cunt with you? We could talk plain man. You like a son tuh me, and you know me and you mother does get long good. He try any folly with you?” Davis fell further into his chair as he tried to push off memories an effort which proved futile. Davis sat there tossed back – “You know I like boys right? The res’ of men is goin’ to tink you like dem too. You can’t come playin’ you want to friends me with no consequence you know...” Joe Joe wiped his face with his pale pink wash cloth, and Thomas marvelled at the baby-smoothness of it. How did this 52

man keep his face so smooth? He doan get bumps nor nuttin’? “Wuh happen you looking at me so? I ain’t say nothin’ to confuse you boy! Rush off man – wunna always playing rasshole games with me.” Thomas turned away, he still had not told him how he felt and it was clearly going to be a while before he could – “Davis! Davis! Boy! I ask you a question. Where you head at boy?” The chief seemed a little upset. Davis gave himself a mental shake, then sat forward a bit. “Nah Chief, he was a cool fella even though he was always a little off, if you know what I mean. Is only when we graduate and everybody find jobs and thing that we find out all the suspicions was true. Other than that though, I can’t see nobody not liking he – he was real cool.” Davis forced a casual smile to his lips and said, “I really ain’t comfortable dealing with this case full time but I would talk to the men and get back to the commanding officer, no problem.” The chief shook his head. “I would have preferred you on the job though Davis, but I’ll see if I can find another officer without uh prejudice against them gay men. I know some of we own woulda burst he tail too, so I trying to pick out the officer carefully. Can’t deal with de News on we ass again, that was too much bad press we had de last time.” Leaning back into his chair, the chief ran his hand over his face suddenly looking older than his 52 years. “You can go Davis, tell Miss Dupree to bring me the files for this case again. And Davis?” Thomas paused and looked over his shoulder at the chief, “Get the information from de block men and get back to me.” Two days later, Officer Davis walked into the headquarters to collect the squad car keys bright and early. One of the guys from the back seemed to be waiting on him to come in, “So ya had a friend dead de other day man!” Davis looked around and angled him a not-now look, “Look man, it too early for this shite. What you talking ‘bout now?” “Man de queer fella that get kill de other day – you friend from school.” “Look man, drop that shite talk. I don’t feel like it right now.” Officer Davis sucked his teeth and walked around the corner to collect the keys. “Look B, I hear you is a bulla and I don’t run no talk wid them.” A bit rattled now, Officer Davis looked at him and rolled his eyes, “No you look, I just want the keys. Wunna like to talk a lot of bullshit. Give me de keys so I could get this thing over wid.” Keys jingling in his pockets, Thomas passed his cubicle, collected his hat and walked right out the door. Not a word to any of the officers in the lobby. He climbed into the squad car and drove till the spaces between houses got smaller and the sidewalks began to disappear. Everything started feeling a little more like home as he reached the block. Men started shifting immediately but he shouted to them before they could get far, “Yea men! Whats de word?” He pulled over laughing, “Yall men does scatter fas’ boy!” “You Davis ain’t gine hear stop pullin’ that shite wid de men?” “You, Thomas ya cunt! I nearly loss my chronic scrambling just now man!” Still laughing he bumped fists with Scarface and Toniq as the rest started to settle into their familiar spots. “I here on police business, I had to bring the car man. Wuh wunna know ‘bout de killin with de Chi-chi man?” The men began to laugh, BlackStar shook his head and said, “Look Thomas, you like you betta come out here more often – nobody doan say Chi-chi man nuh more, B.” And they laughed again. “What you want to know about it though? The man was a bulla, he get wuh was comin’ tuh he. Dat’s de beginning and end of de story. He ain’t get kill soon enough as far as I concern, I did know he was a bulla since we school days.” Officer Davis shook his head, finally understanding the gravity of the situation. “Y’all know that dis could get real bad for y’all though? I may be able to help y’all with a lil drug charge or something but killing somebody is a whole oudda kettle of fish. I’m only a officer, not a detective or a chief nor nuttin so. That was real wrong how dat man get do, if y’all know someting tell me de truth.” BlackStar got up and stood right in front of Officer Davis – almost nose to nose. “Since when you is a fuckin bulla supporta? Men, we like we got a bulla on we 53

hands, yuh.” Suddenly, Officer Davis found himself shoved up against the squad car, looking into BlackStar’s angry eyes. “The only ting saving you and ya bulling self is ya fuckin’ mudda. Carry you rass from ‘bout here and doan look back neitha.” Officer Thomas Davis got back into the squad car fast and pulled off. The rearview mirror framed his friends turning into enemies – rocks in hand. The clouds that had been looming in the distance burst over him now, drowning him and his loss in something stronger than water – regret. As he finally returned to the headquarters he was greeted by awkward looks from the other officers. His partner, Officer Maxwell, nodded his head in the direction of the tv room. When he stepped into the room the officers began to leave, brushing him roughly as they passed through the door. One muttering, “Ya bulla” under his breath as he passed by. The screen showed a figure in the distance and suddenly he realized it was Joe, it was the beating. Someone had sent in a video. And he could hear Joe yelling for him. “Get Davis! My Thom– ugh!” He had been calling for him. Shaking, he stumbled from the room and went to the chief’s office. “Davis, I was waiting on you to get back man. You see dat video? What de ass is gine on? Talk to me boy.” Officer Davis looked at the disbelief in the chief’s eyes and couldn’t bring himself to speak. “Son, talk to me. Wuh’s dis ‘bout you being gay?” Finally Officer Davis choked out, “I didn’t want it to come out like dis, but de rest of de officas know chief?” “Wuh you tink Davis? Course dem know, why you ain’t say nuttin before man?” The chief sucked his teeth – “Chief, I tink…I tink… I quit, chief.” “Now son, da ain’t necessary, de men would cool off.” “You dun know that is uh lie chief. De men ain’t gine forget dis no time soon so. I gone chief.” *** Later Officer Davis thought about how strange it was that he knew even then that Joe was someone special. He had not said anything about his volatile feelings, as his hormones raged and he found himself troubled by the tightness of the pants on Joe – he felt dirty even now. As if someone should throw that first stone at him. But he would never let them see it, as he stepped in the plane the quiet rush of loss swept over him nearly crippling him. “Man ease in nuh, sir?” The voice behind him jolted him into the plane, and later as the wings tipped away from the coast he would say goodbye, just one last time, to the thin veil of moonlight and everything that the night held. Aston Agard A Tangled Web Shamika's Strand. Have you ever been in a position and wondered "How did I get into this mess?". Well, I do. I do everyday. I'm different though. I know EXACTLY how this mess started. It started with "A Tangled Web". I was at work, as usual, gossiping with the girls, early one morning before the first clients. We all worked at the Glam Spot, THE hottest salon in town. I was a goddess on the styling. Stylist extraordinaire. That's me. Ask anyone. I was the best. Melanie worked the nails. She worked at a station not too far from mine. Tina helps out from time to time, and Phoebe does a mean massage. Things were cool. That day, we had the tv on and that book show was on. That's when I saw him. "Here in the studio today is Ethan Hawk, author of A Tangled Web".The 54

girls recognized him too. "Dah ain't you brother, Shamika?" Phoebe asked. I heard the question, but I didn't want to answer. "He did in here up to the other day, ya know?!". Tina beamed. "Man look GOOD!". Cold sweat beaded on my top lip. His voice came to me from the t.v.'s speakers. "This new book is dedicated to my Baby Sham" he said, with a smirk. My stomach churned. I thought of him, how he looked the last time I saw him. He had come to the salon the week before, bringing a copy of the book. He told me, "I just had to bring you a copy.â&#x20AC;? Seeing him always makes me taste bile, but that day, he wore the same scent. Jean-Paul Gautier. It made my knees wobble slightly. He smiled at the others, turned on his heel smoothly and walked out of the store slowly. Memories pawed at me. I could see him leering at me. "You'll always be my Baby Sham," he would say, rubbing my breasts and between my legs. His touch made my flesh walk. He'd always pin me down when he played with me, sometimes smothering me till I could taste his smell. Jean-Paul Gautier. The day he came to the salon, the memories were too much. Too ... raw. I swallowed vomit running to the bathroom. Puking and crying, I sat in the stall. I was back in that small bedroom, with him thrusting away. I bawled and puked again. I don't know how long I stayed in that stall, but Melanie came knocking. "You good?". "I'm fine". "I hearing you, ya know. You ain fine". "I-I gon be good" I said weakly, pushing past her and striding towards my work station. She eyed me up and down, and shrugged. "If you say so". The sound of my name snapped me back to the conversation at hand. "Shamika?! Why you space out so?". The girls were all staring at me. "Daydreaming" I mumbled. "Wid a brother like that I would daydream too" Tina teased. The others laughed that sinister laugh that spoke volumes. If they only knew. I could feel him again, and I tried to force his touch away. Melanie was eyeing me from across the room, the same look she gave me the week before. Did she know? Did she figure it out? I broke her gaze with a question. "Enough about my STEP-brother" I forced a laugh. "Wha bout you an Mr. Dark and Lovely, Mels? If I didn't know you, I woulda done ask a question. You know I like the young ones" I said, teasingly. I thought I caught a hint of a flush in her cheeks. I patted my Blackberry absently. I had wanted to tell her what I knew about him, but the time was never right. "Dominic good. We suppose to be goin' out later". Tina chimed in "Watch it, Mels. If you don't keep him, I would most definitely ease lil piece off of him.â&#x20AC;? Phoebe high-fived her. "Amen mi sista," she drawled lewdly, falling into that fake Jamaican accent that made everyone laugh. This time it was me watching her: Melanie WAS blushing! "Wunna know wunna could g'long if wunna want to. All he is is a source of good wood." Something told me this wasn't exactly true, but I said nothing. We were all talking and laughing, till the chimes on the doors told us the work day had started. Melanie's Strand. The wind chimes up on my windows did singing to me as Dominic strummed my body like a mad guitar. He smell, he touch ... EVERYTING about the man made me weak. He suckled on my neck, sending currents to muh fingers and down to the toes. He murmured as he nibbled down to hard nipples, lightly raking teeth over them. Jesus H. Christ, I like he bad! He does do everyting right. He hands roamed all over my skin. I could not even return the favor. He had tied my hands above me with a scarf. Warm tongue travelling down my belly lef' a trail that glistened till the cold wind dried it. I did dizzy with anticipation. Dominic Maynard. Mine for a time. I wish he would be mine for more than that, but players play. No attachments allowed. No time for them sorta thoughts now though. He teasing me. Running fingers over the soft flesh of my upper thighs. I know he could feel me tremble. Evil bastard. Then, he put he tongue tip on the place that burned most. That man feast pon me for near a hour before he did anyting else ... and the anyting else lasted twice as long. When we did together like that, I did tempted to try an' talk about what I really wanted. I did want him. Not just the wood. I did want HIM. But players like 55

he does play, so I knew he didn't stayin' long. I had decide long time that I'd be the one to dictate how things went. If I din gonna have all of him, I was to keep those feelings at bay. "Same time on Saturday?" he asked, dragging on a pair of white Jordan's. I push up my shoulders. Part of me was screaming "All day, everyday," but I wasn't stupid. That would mek he run. "Man yeah," I said. I turn and back him so he couldn't see the tears settling in my eyes. He get up, check he pockets, mussi making sure he had cellphone, wallet and keys, smiled at me and made for the door. I had to stop myself from running an' pulling him back. It did always hard letting him go. I flounced back in the bed. Was still warm from the hours before. I could still smell him in the sheets. Felt good and bad all rolled into one. I must have dropped to sleep cuz I didn't hear Andre in the house till I heard keys hitting the kitchen counter. I scramble from the room, out to the front house, an there he was, face set up like a dark cloud. "He was here this evening!?" Jeez. Not this again. You would think that, with me at 24, he woulda drop the 'overprotective big brother' ting by now. "He ain my boyfrien'?" (Well he wasn't, but I din gon let he know that). "Mels ... how many women is he out there dealing with beside you?" he say, quietly. He fold his arms across the chest. "I ainno. I don't check behind he like a certain body does check behind Shamika. I ain no stalker." I knew that would make he stop pester me. Any mention of Shams does make Andre humble out like a mouse. "Hmph," he grunted. "She good though?" I know him tall, nuh? "She good. Listen, stop worry 'bout me an worry bout youself." I cross the floor, an open the fridge. "Instead of houndin' me, why you don't ask she out?" He mumbled something to heself, then reason " I just worry about you, Mels. You KNOW how I feel about you an' him. You're too good for him.” He kiss me on the forehead. "Going by Fox an' come back, Melsie,” and he was gone. I did alone again, smelling like Dominic and sweat. "I should really bathe," I thought ... but I snuggle up in the spot Dom had left warm in the bed till sleep knock me out. Dominic's Strand. Weed smoke did thick up in the crank. Did me, Fatty, Bush, Trees an' the rest of the men in the usual spot by the bus shed in front the church. The men did talking 'bout the scenes that dem hear bout the housing scheme lately. Trees did high as ass, so he did talking nuff. Man does stammer cruel though. "S-s-so wunna men h-h-hear bout Phillips an' he lil niece? Get c-c-catch in she bedroom, pants d-d-down, jerking off wid the lil girl watching".” Men holler out "Chaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!" and "Ya lie, man!" Next man start up: "I hear that Lil June sista givin' away pure neck nowadays.” I didn't surprise. She did a lil scabical long time, always pushing up to the men. Dirty looks all around. Men scheming. I had to laugh. Bush turn now: "Tha' ain't nuttin. I hear that the man that was on the t.v. the other day used to chop he sister.” "Who dah you mean, big man?" Fatty hopped down from the high end of the wall to get close to the talk. "Man, that man Ethan Hawk," Bush reason. He bite into a golden apple, look at it funny, an say, "He did 'pon that 'Book Talk' crap. I only watch it cuz my mudda reason she hear the story from Aunt Gloria, who had hear it from somebody close to the family.” He pump he shoulders and keep talking. "Hear the sista look good as rassole too. Tall drink of water. Full of form like a secondary school.” We brek down at that, laugh an laugh an laugh. "Bush, you like you would chop you sista if you had one though," Trees say, poppin the cork from a snap Hennessey. "Man, I ainno. If she did look good ... maybe.” I did thinking to myself that Mels had a fine ass frien' name Shamika that had real form too. If she did ever inch up, she did well chop. Couldn't let Mels know that though, she might shut me off, an she did a sweet lil ting so I never used to ask bout she friend. Anyhow, that same day did Rossie big birthday bash in Club Revolution, so I Blackberry message Mels an' tell she that we did goin' to that. She message me back an tell me 56

that she did gonna bring the same friend and queer-ass Andre. Feel I don't know he ain like me? Man does look at me stink whenever I pass through by she. I ain mind he though cuz anytime he risk something, he would get lick down. Real talk. So later on that night, I gone by Mels to pick she up. When I get there, she did just going in the bath, so I kick off my shoes an' was watching t.v. Some man did on. talking bout some foolish book, but when I hear the name Ethan Hawk, it did sound very familiar. I study to myself where I did hear the name before an I remember Bush. Oh ho! So THIS is the sister-fucker! "Babes! I hear something today 'bout this fella on t.v.". I hear, "Who's dah?". "One Ethan Hawk. Hear he used ta chop he lil sista. Big nasty bitch. The sister had to be a slut too cuz she let it happen.” Real thing though, she had to like that cuz she ain do he nuttin, nor went to the police. I hear something plastic hitting the bathroom floor tiles so I ask Melanie if she did alright. She say she was fine, that she just drop her compact, an all the stuff shackle out on the floor. No big thing I thought, so I continue on about what Bush told me. She was quiet quiet though. I ask she wha' was wrong, but she say she did cool. Then she brother come in the house, so all talk done till we did all ready. But, Melanie though. Gal did look nice. A short bob, glasses, a cut-up white baby tee, a TIGHT short jeans that hug all the right places over black fishnets and a pair of white sneakers. I thought she was the bomb ... until we get by the friend. Good lord!! When Shamika step out, I had to look twice. First off, she pretty. Mel pretty too, don't get me wrong, but Shamika like “she ain' from 'bout here” pretty. Tall, and dark, with some strange-colour eyes. She had on this dress that did the colour of seawater. Skin tight an’ short. Nice, long legs an’ some white high heels. I couldn't keep my eyes off them legs, even when she catch me looking, smile, an' sat next to Mels's brother in the back seat. Andre’s Strand. That night was absolutely terrible. When I heard my sister say that Shamika was going to the fete with her, I literally jumped at the chance to go along. I even did not care that that manwhore Dominic was the one taking us, as long as I got a chance to talk to Sham. As usual, she was exquisite. From the small beauty mark that sits under her left eye like a teardrop, and the sexy pout of her bottom lip, to the way she plays with her hair sometimes when she laughs her bell chime laugh, she captivated me from the first time we met. She's older than me and my sister, but I can't tell by how much. Anyways, when she sat next to me in Dominic's Range Rover, I nearly passed out from excitement. She had said goodnite, smiling towards the front seats. Damn she's pretty, I thought. We talked about nothing on the way to the club, me stammering and rambling, she giggling politely, and asking Dominic how he was, how his day went, if Ross was alright. I didn't mind that though, for my sister kept Dominic well in hand. I noticed she had her hand on his thigh as he drove, and while this irritated me slightly, I hoped it would have showed Shamika what was what. "He's with my sister, Sham, and you should be with me," I thought. We reached the club. I was watching Sham as she walked in front of me. She swayed her hips slowly, bottom rolling, almost seeming to call to me. Standing in the line, she would smile politely at me, but she would flirt playfully with Dominic and joke with Melanie. The question 'why did I even come?' was prowling in the back of my mind, beginning to claw its way to the front, but I kept it down. At least she acknowledged my presence ... that was a start. Inside the club, though, things got worse. After four rounds of drinks, the girls began to dance. We were in the V.I.P. so the music wasn't too loud. Melanie gyrated on Dominic, who leaned against the bar, sipping something green. Shamika was doing her thing too, facing the bar. I soooo wanted to dance with her, but I just did not move. I could see her eyeing the others, a wicked look in her eye. Dominic was watching her too. I could see what was happening, so I pulled Mels gently to 57

one side. "You better talk to Shamika, Melanie," I said. "I think she likes your man". She looked at me, and I knew she knew it too. When we got back, it was painfully obvious. Shamika was grinding on Dominic, who watched as her dress inched higher and higher. Mels stormed up to them. I heard Shamika say, "C'mon Mels, it didn't anything like that. Besides, you should learn to share.” I could see Mels's fists curl, and she said: "You would know all about sharing, since you did sharing with Ethan, ya ol' whore." Sham's face fell. Deathly serious. "Oh ... I see." she mumbled. "Excuse me then.” She strode past me, making her way to the bathrooms. Mels and Dominic were arguing, and I drank, trying to figure out who this Ethan was. Then, Dominic marched briskly out of the club. "Wha' going on?" "He say I does get on like I own he or someting, an' that he goin' outside to cool he head.” She was almost in tears. I hated him even more now. The ice in our glasses slowly turned to water as we sat by the bar in silence. Sham came back when the ice was completely melted. She walked right up to Mels and told her ,"Since you seem to think that I like to share, ask your 'man' (she hung fingers in the air) if wha I now give him ain better than yours.” Same time, Dominic came back to the bar, head low. "Dominic, wha' really going on here?" "Baby, I can explain-" "Don't explain. Tell the young heifer that I put it on ya an' mek ya scream out in the parking lot-" "Hush you. Baby, it didn't nuttin like-" "Tha's true? You fuck with Shamika? "That's right, bitch, to teach you a lesson-" "I ain tell you hush up?! Baby, lemme explain-" "Ain nuttin to explain." "I ain had a choice." Mels slid down from the barstool, turning to leave. "You did say that we could have him if we wanted. Let's just say, I wanted ... and judging from how he get on, I bet he wanted too,” Shams said wickedly. I could not understand what would warrant this from her. She was like a totally different person. My heart burned. How could she do this? Mel stopped dead in her tracks, spun around and ran up to Shamika with a bottle in hand. From there, things are a blur until Sham lays on the ground, bleeding from the head. I’m holding Mel, dragging her away. Dominic is kneeling beside Sham, mouth in an O of shock. People running out of the club, music cut.

The Centre of the Web. Last thing I remember that night was scuffling with Mels. Dom was between us, and I felt a blow above my left eye. I was falling back, then everything went dark. I heard voices. She fell and bumped her head one said. Gi’ she space said another. The voices drifted in and out. Why was it so dark? I was lifted and it felt like I was being carried somewhere. Her neck's swollen. Looks like C-Spine damage. What was going on? I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn't budge. I couldn't move either. Just this deep black hanging before my eyes. I couldn't be dead ... could I? I could hear, so I couldn't be dead. Just trapped in my head. Soon, other voices came to visit. Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirl, you would not believe wha I now hear!! Tina? Yes girl, I now hear sumtin stink! Was she talking to me? Nah, I in the hospital jus's checking 'pon Shams. So, who's she speaking to? Phoebe, you gonna let me tell you the story or no? My cousin aunt now gimme a lil scene ... Uh hmmm ... Guess who used to shack up wid Sham step-brother? Ethan had a woman? One Miss Micey. Miss Can't-Mash-Ants, Melanie Watkins. The words lash me hard. What I jus' hear at all tho? I hear he used to "supplement" she income ... Yes, girl. Mels like she did a 58

destitute lil' prostitute. Tina's voice trailed away. She probably left the room. I was left to mull the words over. Another voice interrupted my thinking. Why couldn't you just like me, Shamika? Why couldn't you see me like that? First, because you are Mels' brother, the same one that cracked his ex-girlfriend's head for talking to Fox. I can't deal with that sort of man. I heard he used to stalk her too. But back to Ethan though ... all this time and I never knew. My own thoughts drowned Andre's voice but soon there was another. Why you do that, Shamika? You know Mels did in there. Why you force it on me? Because I had to. Since Ethan , I couldn't see men in the same way again. I had to be the one in control. When Melanie brought it up, it was like I was right back in his room. I HAD to take control of something, someone ... anyone, and I had to hurt her. She went too far. I knew you couldn't say no. You knew that I knew. I had the pictures to prove it. Who would have thought that Dominic Maynard, “the girls' man”, liked men too? In the carpark, I showed him the pics Phoebe's brother had sent me. Very ... compromising … pictures. Something held me back from showing her that night, but I knew fucking Dom would be killing two birds with one stone. He droned on for a while, some I hope you don't get up, mixed with If you ever tell anybody, ya dead. Soon after, Melanie came. I so sorry. Why you start me like that? I love he bad, Sham. I ain tell wunna so, but I love he. What you want me do? Say sorry? I sorry for what I said. I know about you and my brother. I sorry I put you in here. I wonder if he raped you too. If I coulda make this all go away I would. If I was never in here, I would have never found out about you. I had actually felt bad about the whole thing, thinking maybe you didn't deserve what I did, but whoring out yourself to the one person on this Earth I would see dead if I had chance killed any remorse I had. She stayed there sobbing quietly. I could hear her breathing. Soon, she was gone and a familiar scent made my flesh walk as it always did. Baby Sham. Haven't I told you not to play in the muck with these degenerates? I screamed for help, but no one came. I tried to move, but couldn't. He run his hand along my arm. You are MINE, Sham. Ever since the days we used to play. When father married your mother, he gave you to me. That was part of the deal, he said. That's right. Your mother was in on it too. You should really stop running away, because I can have you any time I want. He was stroking cold skin, but my mind burned. My mother knew? ALL THIS FUCKING TIME, SHE KNEW?? I screamed and screamed and screamed but he kept his hands on me. He played with my breasts and touched me all over. I tried to move but he kept at it until he was satisfied. I'll be back tomorrow. Each and everyday, Baby Sham. I knew he would come back. I also knew that whenever I got out of this bed, he was dead ... and me and mother would be having a nice, long chat.

Devon Edwards Melting Ice David strode up to his office building with a confidence that any man would envy. He pushed the door open and entered. He flashed his pearly white teeth and announced to his workmates, “Rejoice! For I am here.” Everyone looked up from their desk with disdain in their eyes. He laughed at them and proceeded to his desk. On his way there, Mark his office buddy joined him. “Good morning David. How are things going?” “As well as can be.” “So, have you heard about the new girl from the Accounts Department?” “No. What about her?” 59

“Well rumour has it that she’s HOT but hard to get. Every man who’s approached her for a date, she’s turned them down.” David stroked his chin and thought, I love a challenge. “Hello? Earth to David. Are you even listening?” “Yes I am. Did you say she’s been turning them all down?” “Yes. They say it’s because she considers herself to be an independent woman and has no need for a man.” “Maybe she hasn’t met the right guy.” David turned and continued on his way to his desk. That evening David stood a short distance away from the Accounts Department watching every single woman that exited its doors. They were all in groups of either two or three. It was when one woman came out alone that David thought, this must be her. Maybe it was the way she walked as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe it was the way the black dress moulded to her body outlining every single curve. Whatever it was, David was pleased. As he walked towards her he thought, what woman could resist me. I am handsome and filled with charm. I am going to melt that cold exterior of hers and ignite the fire within. “Hello, I’m David and you are?” he asked, walking beside her. “I’m Alicia.” “Nice to meet you Alicia. So, how do you like your new job?” “It’s okay.” David grasped her arm and halted her progress. “Alicia, let’s skip all of this warm-up talk and get to the matter at hand. I can feel a connection between us. From the first moment I saw you I knew we were destined to be together. Let’s face it we seem to be the perfect match. How about going out with me tonight for dinner at The Hilton? Say seven?” With a look of revulsion upon her face Alicia replied, “I think not.” David flashed his megawatt smile and upped his charm. “I know if you had a date with me, you would never be the same. It would be like no one else existed in the world but the two of us. I will show you things you never thought were possible. So, what do you say?” She stared at him for what seemed like forever and then she smiled. “Did you say The Hilton for seven?” “Yes. I could pick you up. Just give me your address.” “No I’ll meet you there. It was a pleasure meeting you David.” David took her hand in his. “The same here Alicia.” As he turned and walked away he thought, that is how a real man does it. This was the night perfect for passion and romance. Nothing can stop me from getting it. He got out of his car with a bounce in his step and handed the keys to the valet. As he walked towards the door of the restaurant, he paused and looked at his reflection in the glass. The blue cotton shirt hugged his shoulders and caressed his torso as it made its way down to his waist. There it met his belt; long and thick and strong, which held his black pinstriped pants in place. His pinstriped pants flowed down to his charcoal socks and matching square mouth shoes. He nodded at himself in approval and stepped through the door. “Good evening sir,” the hostess said. “Do you have a reservation?” “Yes. The name is Howard. Party of two.” “Sir, your party has not arrived as yet, would you like to be shown to the lounge or to your table?” “I’ll wait at the table. She’ll soon be here.” “Very well sir. This way please.”

There was a confidence that radiated in his every action as he followed the hostess to his table. He walked with his head held high and a broad smile across his face as he strode with purpose across the floor. Arriving at his table, he sat erect in his chair and surveyed his surroundings. Shortly afterwards, a waitress approached him. “May I get you something to drink sir?” “Yes. Just a glass of water with ice.” “Very well sir.” As the waitress went to fill his order he began to scan the room. Various expressions crossed his face as he critiqued the scenes around him. His face contorted as he watched an elderly gentleman chew his food with his mouth open. His eyes narrowed as he watched a woman slip her foot from her shoe and run it up the leg of her date. His jaw tensed as . . . His eyes returned to the empty chair across from him. When the waitress returned with his glass of water he gave her a tentative smile as his eyes returned to the opposite end of the table. He furrowed his brow as his pupils retreated and a pensive look spread across his face. His eyes returned to the table and his untouched glass of water. He looked at the glass with malice in his eyes as the first beads of sweat began to appear; the ice had begun to melt. His shoulders slumped and he felt like a deflating balloon. The waitress returned to refresh his glass but scurried away when she realised that it was still untouched. He cast his eyes to the door and held his breath as it opened. He sat erect. In walked a tall striking lady, full of grace and elegance. He grew in despair as she was greeted by a strapping gentleman who whisked her away to a table at the far end. His gaze left them and continued around the room searching with vigour. When his eyes returned to the table a small pool had formed at the base of the glass and half the ice had melted. The hostess returned to his table. “When will your party be joining you sir?” Trepidation coursed through his body and he began to stammer in response. “I . . . I . . . I . . .” “I am sorry sir, but if your party is not here in ten minutes we will have to relocate you to the lounge.” He nodded in response. Despair etched its way across his face as he continued to watch the pool at the base of the glass surpass the boundary of the napkin and form a small stream across the table. He watched until the last cube of ice returned to its liquid state, then grabbed the glass and emptied its contents in one gulp. He thrust his chair back bouncing the table as he stood, stormed across the floor past the hostess and through the door. “Fetch my car!” he yelled at the valet. He burned outwardly with rage like a caged animal but inside his stomach churned with humiliation. The next morning David woke with the unforgettable night still on his mind. When he arrived at work he walked through the door without uttering a word and made his way to his desk. On his way there, he could not help but notice the small chuckles and the whispers that came from his workmates as he passed. He sat at his desk still confused as to why something like this would happen to someone like him. As David tried to figure out where he went wrong, Mark stopped at his desk. “Hey David, did you hear about what happened last night? The whole office is talking about it.” “Hear what Mark?” “Well, apparently some guy approached the new girl and asked her out. Would you believe she accepted and then turned around and stood him up?” Mark began to laugh. “That was funny.” 61

David sat there and did not utter a word. “Wait, why aren’t you laughing? He slouched further in his chair and covered his face with his hands. “Please tell me it wasn’t you.”

Jody Sandiford Ends Meet She was standing up straight, freeze solid solid in de dark, like one ah dem royal palace guards in England yuh does see pun TV. Not even flinching tuh wipe de fear out she eyes as it trickle down she wrinkly face, pulling down she jawbone and turning she mouth into ah frown. I could see she eyes now; big and brown, reflecting off ah big, fancy mirror. She face did white white like flour get pelt pun it. All I cuh do is wait, 'cause I know she hear when de antique clock fall off de living room table. She did look good fuh she age though. Dress prim and proper in ah pants suit. She musse just get in from work at some big-up job like everybody who live 'bout dey. Ain't got nuh man, nuh chick nor child and living it up in dis castle. She start calling out, asking if somebody in dey; as if I gine say:Yeah! Look I in here doing some Christmas shopping. Stupse. She creep up de stairs and I creep past behind she. All I had tuh do was pass de stair case and I good; de door wasn't far. She almost reach de top... I could hear dat naaasty cough she had coming from up dey. I did almost by de door when I gine hear she hollering STOP! She had a cricket bat. Ah rasshole cricket bat. Stupse. Dese old, rich people ain't had much sense yuh know. I didn't want tuh hurt she. I really didn't 'cause lord knows dat cold or whatever virus she had was hurting she enough. She had de bat waving all up in my face and saying how she did done call de Police. She didn't know I had dominoes tuh guh home and play wid de men. Stupse. Police what! Furthermore I had two children tuh feed 'cause de muddah did useless and she did wutlass. I shoulda listen tuh my muddah and not breed nuh town rat, but damn, man cannot live by bread alone. I sprint tuh de door. She grab me. I push she off. She hit me. She hit me again, again. She hit me like she did chopping wood. I couldn't get catch. I shove she but she wouldn't let go so I push a lil harder and she trip. She head bounce off de edge ah de marble counter and crack open like ah boil egg. She did dead. She did dead and I kill she. Deafening silence suffocate me cawblen like a vacuum, sucking out de air, squeezing my head and mekking my heart beat faster. I, Franklin Theophilus Banfield kill ah woman. De blood drown my shoes in red and smell like metal; I hear we blood got in iron. Fuh wuh seem like ah eternity, I just stand up dey. Everyt'ing else after dah was a blur. Next t'ing yuh know, I hear sirens wailing in de distance.

Amanda Haynes Talamak

Sun left the tropics a while ago. Now they’re stars and the sky looks blue-black; across the street everyone’s lights are out. Can’t smell any sea-salt.Looking away from from the louvers for a clock. Guy across the room says its half past. High arched ceiling: wooden roof, too dark to get more detail. Mod mustard sofa: detachable, cushions embroidered with autumn leaves. White tiles though, with faint grey shadows and there’re a few MACCO MACO magazines stacked on top of a black coffee table. Lights off, candle on black table lighted. It’s cylindrical, looks like Kiren’s red Diwali candle; the one with three smaller candles floating in the middle. Guy with light blue cotton shirt and khaki cut-offs sitting on sofa, leaning over to light candle every time it blows out with “Welcome to Barbados” lighter. The flicker’s a bit rusty and the dolphin’s nose is crinkling. Says it was his father’s. Others across the room, giggling at intervals; bottles of cough syrup and juice stay open; sipping bajan-cherry. Guy sitting beneath two girls on the tiles; turns his trucker hat so that the snap and white netting is at the front, red peak facing back. Pulls out a Blackberry as girls’ knees turn slightly towards each other in the chair. Someone’s brother running up and down the hall after music changes to Dubstep, locs flying. Chubby guy with plait hair at dining table near the end of the hall, just sitting there. Glass table-top: black legs, black chairs, streamlined backs, seats six- glossier than gran-gran’s dining table, would probably melt in the sun. Smoke always slithers pass from a guy on the right; this one’s stubbing out the ends of a spliff in a tiny ceramic bowl. His friend walks over to the chair. It dips as she sits. Wearing a ‘Whose Steel Donkey?’ graphic tee. Tells him she designed it, and shakes a plastic cup with a murky brown-green liquid in his face. Looks like vomit but it tastes good. He tastes it, says it tastes good. His friend and the mushroom juice float up three steps leading to the kitchen, pouring him some; also grabs a zip-locked bag of pink and yellow and blue and purple pills. Now, he’s lying on his back, raising a fresh one to his lips and breathing slow. Lowers it to the floor as he breathes out; arm would look limp if his fingers weren’t clutching the joint. Two guys walking inside from gallery. East wind blows out candles again. Smoky vanilla scent lingers. He doesn’t get up to light them this time and someone turns on the light and there’s aGuy across the room. His eyes are a lighter brown, he’s standing now; taller than expected, lean; white-T, red denim; would say they’re skinny jeans if he couldn’t walk in them, skate pants? Yes, someone said he’s a skateboarder: hair long enough to be almost curly, texture cottony; hat just dropped on top of it all; he turns the peak to face the front again, smiling; teeth very white , button nose; moustache a 63

bit too thick and- hair on his chin too? Starts snapping his fingers and bobbing his head to the beat; chill-wave; he’s smiling closed mouth now, half-smile; long eyelashes, thick eyebrows; wouldn’t have noticed it if the lights weren’t on, would’veGanja. Walking through kitchen, pass dining table, down hall, walking into small cramped space. Eyes closing until there’s a window overhead; a cream curtain’s blowing in the wind. Sit in white plastic chair. Open jar. Hold pipe. Pull bamboo lighter from pocket. Flick lighter and breathe in. Keep breathing in. Now, breathe out… “♫♪♫♪♫” Skater boy suddenly appears with a beer, singing something. His eyes are really brown; a light chestnut brown, they’re very beautiful really, and unexpected, somehow… he’s nodding his head, replying, asking, replying, asking and soon he’s sitting on the edge of the small desk, sipping his Banks… Probably 6’2?6’1 the shortest. Asking about that song he was singing, talking about music, talking about white supremacy and black power, talking about his mother, talking until Skater Boy shuts up and sparks are riding his words and sighs trickle in from the living room and his eyes are so fucking erotic as he leans in or gasms nose-dive, crashing throughout the house, splintering bodies over and over and over againA clock chimes: Pills stashed. Pipes pocketed. Lighters clicked. Jars sealed. Eyes open. Blinking until vision focuses in on the small window with the cream curtain that’s still blowing in the wind. She doesn’t have to look outside to see there’re no more stars, or that the sky’s wearing a smoky orange-yellow sheath. It always looks like mush around this time. She yawns… into a splutter. Sea-spray’s acrid again, tastes like hell. And some rasshole’s touching her hai- huh? A guy is beside her. That skater guy is lying next to her on the floor with his eyes still closed. His skin is glowing in the sunlight. She pokes him but he just grunts and moves closer. Long eyelashes. His nose is touching hers now and his fingers stay combing her hair, until they get caught in her curls. She squeals and his eyelids flutter. She can hear the others in the living room: Blackberrys and Iphones ringing. Feet dragging.Front door slamming. Cars revving. Time’s speeding up… “Talamak” pulled her back to him. He’s stroking her hair again. He’s smiling at her and stroking her ‘fro: “…it’s the name of that song I was singing, the one you asked me ‘bout. Think it’s Tagalog for ‘chronic’ or ‘freeloader of drugs’… you think that’s all we are?” 64

His voice sounds the same. And those eyesâ&#x20AC;Ś

she canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe his eyes are even more beautiful during the day.

Contributors D'Anthra B. Adderley: a scholarship student in the International Baccalaureate Program, at St. Andrew's School, on New Providence, The Bahamas. D'Anthra attended the 2009 and 2010 Bahamas Writers Summer Institute, participating in Poetry Workshops. Aston Agard: a First Class Honours, Literatures in English graduate and now an MPhil student at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, where he won the student literature prize two years in a row. At present, he juggles academic reading, creative writing and a seven-month-old daughter. He aspires to be a lecturer at the University after pursuing his doctorate. Cassia Alphonso: Born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana, she attended Hamilton College in Upstate New York where she majored in English. After graduating she returned to Guyana to work in her family's television station Carlyon Blackman: Since winning the inaugural Irving Burgie Literary Award for Poetry in 1983, Carlyon Blackman has been honing her craft. After a hiatus of several years she has reemerged on the literary scene and her work has been published in online and print publications including The Caribbean Writer, Tongues of the Ocean and St. Somewhere Journal. Currently she is working towards publishing a poetry collection Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán: is from the South Bronx. He is the author of Antes y después del Bronx: Lenapehoking (New American Press) and editor of an international queer Indigenous issue of Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought. His work appears in El Rehén and Hotel Abismo in Puerto Rico, The Caribbean Writer in St. Croix, and Poui. A Michigan State University Ph.D. candidate, he is completing Yerbabuena/Mala yerba, All My Roots Need Rain: mixed-blood poetry & prose. Vashti Bowlah: a writer from Trinidad and Tobago and a participant of the 2008 Cropper Foundation/UWI Creative Writers’ Residential Workshop. Her short stories, articles and reviews have appeared in various publications including The Caribbean Writer, St. Somewhere Journal, Poui, Signifyin’ Guyana Caribbean Women Writers (Series): Romance and Relationships, WomenSpeak Journal, and St. Petersburg Review. Mia Cumberbatch: is a 20 yr. old Barbadian singer/songwriter and Cave Hill Literatures in English graduate. Writing, whether composing a poem, story or song, has always been a part of her life. She explored it further through the creative writing course as part of her degree. Devon Edwards: a Literatures in English graduate of University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. His love for creative writing emerged when he took the creative writing course in fiction at Cave Hill. Devon wants to become a teacher someday, educating young minds and making a contribution to his society. Devon is a Christian and cherishes the impact his school Ellerslie Secondary has had on him. Maggie Harris: has published five collections of poetry, a memoir of her childhood in Guyana, Kiskadee Girl, and a book of short stories, Canterbury Tales on a Cockcrow Morning. Limbolands, her first collection of poetry won The Guyana Prize 2000, and After a Visit to a Botanical Garden, her fifth collection, was shortlisted in 2012. Selected Poems is included in The Guyana Classics Series. Maggie has performed her work in the UK, Barbados and Europe, 66

and has organised several literature events. Has been Reader Development Worker, Kent Arts & Libraries, Creative Writing Tutor, Kent University, and International Teaching Fellow, Southampton University. Had her first solo art exhibition, From Broadstairs with Love, in 2012. Amanda Haynes: a Bajan national with eclectic sensibilities. Writing stories was second nature, but somewhere along she concentrated on reading, listening and watching them instead. Thankfully, the creative writing course during her final academic year encouraged her to try again. A UWI Cave Hill Literatures in English graduate, she is now a junior editor/publishing intern. Would love to see the development of a sustainable Caribbean publishing industry during her lifetime. Janice Lynn: a Bahamian writer whose work has been shortlisted for the 2012 Commonwealth Short Story Prize and 2012 Small Axe Literary Competition. Her writing has appeared in collections including A Sudden and Violent Change and Tongues of the Ocean. Ian McDonald: see page 45. Carol Mitchell: A 1991 Cave Hill graduate from St. Kitts, currently living in Accra, Ghana. Author of a series of children’s books, Caribbean Adventure Series and Adventures of Chee Chee. Joy Murray: is a pseudonym, for which reason she offers no bio. Jody Sandiford: a twenty-six year old writer, he won the Commonwealth essay writing competition for Barbados and the National Arbor Day essay writing competition while at secondary school. Has since won 9 NIFCA awards. A Cave Hill Literatures in English graduate who took the creative writing course as part of his degree. Victoria Sarne: My inner dialogue writes itself. An Englishwoman far from home and far from youth, I have discovered that my voice enables me to survive the good, the bad and the sad times. A-dZiko Simba: a writer, performer and storyteller. Her passion is in using these Creatorgifted talents to assist in uplifting Afrikan peoples in the Diaspora. She has most recently written for a year long radio serial drama, Outa Road, currently broadcasting on Jamaica’s RJR radio station. A-dZiko’s CD , Crazy Lady Days, features poems accompanied by Afrikan percussion and flutes. Obediah Smith: was born on New Providence, the Bahamas, in 1954 and has published 13 books of poetry in English. He has participated in writers’ workshops at University of Miami and University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. He majored in Speech & Drama and Biology at Memphis State University and Dramatics and Speech at Fisk University, and has studied French in Paris. Obediah was Poetry Workshop facilitator for the 2009 Bahamas Writers Summer Institute. His poems, in English, are included in literary journals and anthologies throughout the Caribbean, in the USA and in England and, translated into Spanish, are included in anthologies in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and Spain. His fourteenth book, El amplio Mar de los Sargazos y otros poemas, was published in Costa Rica in 2011.