Another Haiti Poem... BoYa (Draft 3)
How did you get here?
Your two lips protruding bubbles,
the wood contorting,
and giving shape to unhuman definitions of
feminity,
You one foot mahogany brown caricature
of a woman
How did you get here?
Laying on the carpet from colonial
Massachusetts, underneath the dented table
with scribbling and scratches on the leg that’s going for $50,
at the shop in quiet Mansfield, PA
I know you.
Carved w/ un kouto,
then lightly touched by a pit fire
In Port Au Prince
How did you reach this far norther tier of America
It’s cold out. Your breast exposed and innermost
thigh covered by a small cloth.
Your feet are bare. Plastered to the base of decadent
scrap wood.
You didn’t run.
Did You Cross the Atlantic Ocean,
your hands raised high above your head
holding a basket filled with mangoes and plantain for
The wood that rises on your belly
a child stuck between dead tree.
I pull you from underneath the table
brushing away dust from brown eyes.
No tag in sight.
She gives me you for 10,
I give her all the bills crumpled in my back pocket.
“Keep the change”
The door slams behind us
wind chimes rattle,
I wrap you in between my scarf.
“We’re going home”