Ayiti
a poem after the Vilaj Imajine painting by Tomm El-Saieh
These are the colors I call the past.
Will the present ever return to these blue, magenta skies,
orange flowers,
and mint yellow, black freckled mangoes?
When will my mother no longer fear her Home
and dance
through the still black air
carrying no worries of missing streetlights
kissing newfound friends with reddened lips
just for the taste of it.
I see men in those eyes,
in the fragmented maze where a river of lava
purifies all it touches:
brown streaked banana bunches,
purple cherries,
blood dipped strawberries,
and yellowed lemons
all grow from upside-down rum bottles
outside the only Mosque in This City.
A mattress of crushed orange peels
lies in dirt among smiles of women
dressed in sad faces,
on top of which
dogs chew on sugar cane.
Out of nonexistent sewage lines
A machete finds it tempo
in the arm of a dancer
is then orchestrated into pieces —
here, there is music everywhere:
Above the smoke of burned bodies and tires
turned barricades (we never know who they are keeping out or in).
Stars sit above children
orphaned, seized by gangs, or missionaries.
What good is your art?
This “splattered” canvas is a vision,
preparation for a full future
when we will shed our grief
wear only the purest yellow
and eat the brightest fruit on
clean sand from clear beaches
these hands
have not yet parted.
Each color in each stroke
is a yoke slipping out its home
into a sanctuary of ze avec bannann with a side of zaboca:
the only breakfast I’ll always have room for.
In mornings
my mother washes dreams (or nightmares) of return from her face.
I sit, thinking:
What is left of this City
is left with us to believe;
This City has always been imaginary to me.
Originally published in Black Fox Literary Magazine Issue #26