Small Axe

Piedra volcánica that pricks the skin,the basalts up north have nothing on you.So what if the sea at edge wears you smooth?At center you’re rough—you jutinto the piel that doesn’t take time with you.

Only the jaivas have your scuttle downand they would flee when we hung lanternsat the cliff’s edge every moonless night.

A traer las sardinas, whole shoals of them.Wilson and my grandfather hushing mecuando la linterna revelaba formaswhere the water roared up into sea.

Bring a board with which to sit upon the rock,take your time, and cast a line into the dark. [End Page 111]

Cut current, snap each neckto attention. Fans, lights,flickering, fondling, stop.

It gets so damn hot stickyevery body starts leavingHiroshima shadows of sweat.

The boredom physically hurtsafter fourth hour manuallyaerating the fishtank. Hey, look!

Inside each tiny bubble a City,absolute abject alone (exceptfor the fish.) What must atomic

people in bubble cities thinkof you, oh absent fatherin the cloying night? You left

just like the light. For work, foranother country. You’d callonce a fortnight, and when the power

went out I’d pick up the receiverand whisper into the phone: “Apagón,apagón, where have you gone?” [End Page 112]

From     Lithuania              lingonberry jam boltblue as the Baltic, thick asclotted blood

              Hazy like visions GreatAunt Christiana had of hernever-born son

                New worldswhere surf mewled upfrom sea like       babies’ sour vomit.

We must place pectinon his chest, turn    the firelow       so sugars    bubble.

Christiana reeking cat-piss, reading           coffee grounds,whispering       you after dinner       when    everyone else

ignored. Christiana,       gap toothed,frumpy, so lost       after your mother

our great grandmother, died.You taught me how to keep,

to add sugar, lemon, heat    and rind for bitterness. [End Page 113]

At first few, but every summermore apartments. Unfinishedbuildings left leaning in rain.The Haitian men who builtwould dream in them at night,their cooking fires glow likeamber. Like sap, like sap I sawa man fall down. Scaffoldcollapse. Nine, or ten, I ranto tell my grandma. Shesaid, “Bueno, por lo menos,hay uno menos.” I comefrom here, this burl of earth.

Abuelita, I love you, but youstill pray to Saint LyndonJohnson for delivering usfrom the comunistas in ’65.

My prayer differs. Like sap,that man clings to the air solet palms became palms; fingers,fronds. Teeth gnash into lianasoozing out all agony. Maywrapped vines turn into armsupturned to grasp, and let grassgreen weave a chest that unweavesinto a mountain: La CordilleraOccidental breathingsilver mist over Puerto Plata. [End Page 114]

Firmament waters and our parents     pierce them throwing us ina sleeping sea. My mother

bundles a rope about me. What if     a knot slips? Her brother’s sailboata small dominion, pitching.

Back to the cabin! No, I’m not     going in, but my uncle throws meoverboard so I can open my eyes

up vast underwaters     where daylights dwindle down.I’ll keep this cold terror

of the open ocean until     all my brightest days drown. [End Page 115]

Let’s call him Isaiah. I was seventeen    the first time he died. On the dirty beach at dawn       I encounter his blue body, sprawled.

I place a sprig of sea grape    tover his milked eyes. He must’ve fallen       off the boat    taking him across.

Death by water I never understood    until I swam in Lake Taghkanic, sweet       dark and cloying she wouldn’t

hold me like all my oceans.    That second time, in the motel bath       tub with the television on dripping

water down the side; The Drowned Man    thumbed pages of Gideon’s bible absent       mindedly, observed the wood paneling

before mumbling: Who do you think braids    the surf into the knees, twists the tide       into your wrists? Let’s just

stack sea-glass until faraway mountains    become the last Sunday bathers at the beach       clinging to each other in the swell. [End Page 116]

He was cunning enough                                                to break loose                                                                      of hellwith one        bristly        pineapple              under-arm, corneringanyone who would liste         n:                              how                                                                 boring                                               the television                                               was, that melodrama winding     round his wrists                                  like a boiledleather strap                                                                 untilknots quicker than anyone,                      until                                          the rapeseed oil ran                                          down his chin,      ruining her dress. [End Page 117]

Miseria is a carnival without stoplights where a lonepoliceman in colonial khakiis casi atropellado by fuguesof motorbikes donde hay ten

girls cantando entre snarlingcars y un one-armed mantrying to wash the windshieldof my mother’s Mercedeswith just a smile hay

Children too young balan-cing blue tubs of peanutbrittle upon so soft skullsy the most extreme caseof goiter que jamás verás

limping past in hot tears.Every now, then infantshanging from Haitianwomen brightly clad,                              smile. [End Page 118]

They came to. Passedfrom—                           Settling,They moved,       Ran                                  awayFled.                      fromWhere did they go?His mother isHer father, born into.                             They bothForget.                  Tried to.Sígueme. I know a man, havea Friend, have heard of                                            a Placewhere we can all.

Grandfather never grew one hyacinth.No rosebud ever sprang from his dull spade.Instead, he would pick up old coconutsand with black carbón, blow orchids into themlike flames. He knew their proper names, too.Phalaenopsis and dendrobiumeran regalos when occasion demandedand escape when all else demanded too much.Yet, for the birth of his children’s children

el viejo plantó árboles:for Gabriella, a Caribbean pineto Daniél a royal palm, and I got a roble,an ironwood oak that grows, and grows. [End Page 119]