Image courtesy of Faris Algosaibi. Shared via a Creative Commons license.

—-

Men

The man from Brazza
is like the men at home
who sprawl at the mouths of bars
and like the starched-white men
coming into the church
on pillows of air.

Evenings
they want to
kneeling behind you
grabs the reins sharp
till your earrings clatter to the floor like coins
till you rattle their names with cold.

Woman you were made to feel
their weight taste the length
and breadth of the span of their hard
days.

They want you to let them
string out names like prayers
or curses
call you the name of every whore
they have never known:
and you, the same, who has shed red blood
for them
answer
cradle the heat-worn head
in the cool valley between your breasts
and call them baby.

 

—-

Superstition

I left behind
a man.
Warm, fragrant rain.
Eyes that winked
like fireflies
when I entered
the room.

Baking pans burdened
with yellow bread.
Recipes written
in my own hand.

I was ushered off with wishes.
To my blouse they pinned
silver wings

So in these streets
in company with
What-says-it-is-the-sun,
my pocket jingling
with minor coins,
it is not hatred you see
in my eye – you people
who step into the street
neglectful
of your lives.

You
who will not cross paths
with this dangerous
superstition.

The voracious black cat.
Here to scorch your green
grass. To expose your children
to the affliction
of difference.

Yet believe this:
for you I hold
no hatred.
Just hunger. Only
pure unslaked
thirst.

For your cold
but most abundant sky.

 

—-

Charity Shop

At a charity shop
I first smell then see
a man – one ear
purpled bloated,
rotting normal.

He examines the used wool
sweaters, pulling
at the necklines, testing
for soundness: a sharp eye
critiquing warp and weft
of thread, snapping elastic,
while the room dampens
with the decay of him.

This is worse
than if he’d stripped down, suddenly
flinging my way
a shrunken pair of balls.

A smell of flesh losing
what holds it – nothing
to be nursed or flaunted.
– Brotherman
this warm, acrid sweetness is
not to be pulled over one’s head
and worn as if warmth, comfort.

This is weakness
and should be fought
with every fraying fibre.
Not shared up, not flung on
the shoulders of bystanders.

But no one pauses, only me
faltering mid-row, mid-thought,
wondering what manner of place, as
he, poisonous, flits
rack to rack.

Meanwhile, the twittering voices
the rustle of plastic bags
up at the till
the soft clang of hangers.

 

—-

 

Jannine Horsford is an instructor in English living in Trinidad and Tobago. She is a Cropper Foundation Caribbean Writers’ Workshop 2014 fellow and, most recently, has has had poems published in Susumba’s Bookbag Issue 5.