A thatch broom takes the rubbles sepia spice
dust billows, chokes and blinds. Together land
and sea procure our rot. Fragments of paradise
fade to a vacant lot, as memories can.
In one-time harbour, labourers drink and dine
extending ministry’s plan to plot black lives.
We dance in tartan frocks on the pearl sand
content to lose our tongue and free waistlines,
take basket carry water to preserve
postcards of coconut fronds and waterfalls.
Sedated by lessons, hard as the rod that taught—
shelves of Britannica staged behind glass
transplanted in living room, read as our own
when wood and water offered no advantage.
We made masks, forgot our faces, hid mirrors.
Poverty became novel, not a page
to scorn and turn. We played it up to blend,
used it to lace our pockets, curry friends,
mark gardens and estates separate from pens
and worked for little, smiles and dignity
together building easeful slavery.
The warner warned this rootlessness would come,
our gods would go and all that would remain:
ruins from that other land we blame
whose actors curtsy in our proscenium.
I memorised their stories line for line
and clothed myself with all that they had named.
I admit I have profited—
Poor minstrel who envied scholars
and milled the excuse of not knowing better,
that it was human heart that taught me metre
so learned audiences would judge we kind
for all that I have dealt for this bleached dollar.