Walcott

Perplexed by blood warming these veins, like you, I cannot choose. Home is this brittle shore, a cluster of shacks unlatched by wind and rain, knowing love cannot spare its people from the worms rent, or the termites itch in the groin.         These sad whispers feed the muse. Its lisping tongue stutters to unveil those tales         that haunt your plays— parodies of good and evil transposed at dusk, when the wind dances with casuarinas.      They shape the silence. A language too brittle for my use, until I learnt to soften its edges with spit and built the paradigm of fond neglect, to misplace nouns         at my irresolute will.