taken him on the back of a donkey

to the gully where he was born,

fed him

Green bananas?

Green bananas until night fell,

taken him into the house before seeing

that he was half smoke, that he had been floating away,
closed the shutters,

wrapped him in the one good blanket,

kept him separate from the candles,

let him become like the dark blue wall of a house

by the door where the light steps past,

like the mute grease of comers and goers.

A painting of an old, great king?

Old king with a flaking face.

Spirit on a cave wall?

The dye that fixed the yak.

And in the yard, the foreign sea,

armies come turning on a zoetropic mist.

And Mucius Scaevola?

“Greater than Mucius Scaevola…”

sent out of Porsena, so shocking was his bravery.

His smooth white body is in the Louvre, turning, saying,

“How cheap the body is to men.”

Duppy

I watch them twist back her arm

jerk her head back   flash of the photographer

turns her irises to rings   free flesh   head wet with sweat

The light that evening turned   from blue to siren blue.

Fordham Park packed that afternoon –

chicken sandwich   big coat   money for the bus

cold rain co-steamed   in green and grey

the city parts its lips   speaks the crowd   dodge them boys in blue

Everyone I know

present in the arch of the baton   cracking heads
clamour like battered cod   crackles when bitten
like kids skipping for freedom

cracked puddle   reflects the procession

rude boys moody   like the underside of clouds

No-one will tell me   what happened to my body

I see my picture on a sign   my name

as though the march

were my mother’s mantelpiece   Lewisham the frame
every face come in like a cousin

tall boys carry my empty coffin

Porky pig, porky pig   ain’t you got some graves to dig?

Heavies in wet leather calling to regroup
wrestlers turned stewards with umbrellas
icy run-down     fire soup for all

We have transformed this country

into a likkle dark skin pickney

bopping for laughs

at carnival squat him batty

in rich people petunia

drop him patty     pun dem floor

Crowd thick as carnival

once on my father’s shoulders

I wished he would grip

my rattling heart as tight

as he gripped my calves

I felt the bass through his head

and neck

pound my stomach in its basin

the sound

chirping wet English heat

the louder it is     the closer we are to home

I follow them late into the night

soak what little I have left in soca

drink the last of the libation poured at my feet
eat a petal from the bouquet shaped like my name

The crowd passes through me

Every lord called upon     every church song sung

every psalm and saying

every aunt chasing duppy

cannot bring us back

nor the speakers

nor the bass nor the sound

nor the spectre

of the centuries’ coming cold

nor Hyde Park Corner   nor the speaker