we will catch conger eels but I feel a breeze against

my cheek, and suddenly remember, I have a visit to make.

My grandfather Baba Aguda is a long time waiting for me.

I freeze mid-motion, turn on my heels, and run…

SEA-BLACK, wave-curved lips and decayed yellow

teeth parted to release a guttural, rum-rich laugh,

when Taiwo, the panting long-legged boy, flung

himself on the wooden veranda in respectful greeting

of his grandfather, who spat out the pulp

of his frayed chewing stick, flicked back the sleeves

of his bright blue agbada and called gently.

‘Come, come,’ he said and with an oba’s sweep of his arm,

drew the fear-drenched child to his chest.

‘You think I would hurt you? You are my bones.

I would not hurt myself, would I? Eh heh!

So the octopus has finally tied up your tongue. Yes!’

‘No, Sir, but I was running so fast I forgot.’

His Baba, more grand, more imposing than any chief.

Oh to run his fingers over the rivulets on his face,

to count the white coils crowning his head.

Baba’s sackcloth cheek scraped Taiwo’s soft new skin.

He felt the vibrations of his grandfather’s bass voice

resonate through skin, bones, down to his tingling toes.

‘Now go sit on the floor, don’t fidget, shut up

and listen as if you are a bat with no eyes.’

CHAPTER 19

Pernambuco, Brazil, 1840 –

BABA

THE GODS born me on a fazenda in the hills of Brazil.

(Baba’s sonorous rasp of cigarillos and cachaças deepened

his jaded brown eyes glazed, affixed this memory place.)

Born into the time of slavery, ten long decades ago.

Yes, your Baba came into this world a chattel, owned

by Senhor Fernandés da Costa, sugar plantation owner.

I Leonardo, came out behind my twin brother Gilberto,

sons for Antonio and Severina, my mãe and my pai.

Mãe cut cane with me strapped to her back.

Palm tree tall, she had heavy breasts, I can still recall

her hard muscles moving against my squashy little body

and the rhythm of her steady Shwop! Shwop! Shwop!

When I was able to run and carry, I worked the fields.

My muscles forever ached like the fever, exhaustion

made my walk an old man’s drag, my stomach gnawed itself

and always the shadow of fear, the long-haired men

mounted on silent stallions silhouetted against the sun.

No link to the outside world, cut off in time, losing time,

I felt my whole lifetime would be spent killing sugar cane.

My scrawny back arched like a sickle.

CHILDREN FORGET what is too painful to remember.

For years I could not imagine Mãe’s face or form or voice.

One night she was a husky lullaby soothing us to sleep,

the next, stirring in morning’s ghostly light, she had vanished.

Mãe had been the river I swam in. The river held me,