King David Cooks Ital in Port Antonio

I

Sun softens asphalt to lava islands around potholed stone roads.We climb zigzags cut silly into hillsides, by rain, goats,Tree roots and barefoot hill dwellers. King David tells me a toad

For a man, slapped him with a cutlass, and for days croakedOutside his house, Rasta come out and face me. But King DavidSays to answer that call and wet his cutlass with another man’s blood

Not his way, so he left that town for this other dungle. He dividesHis attention between his mobile and me. Hails all in his neighborhood,A deaf, mute woman, Ayah, blessings, me see you, peace to all.

He whistles at shacks to let them know he trespasses, lean-tosThat cling to rock shelves, waves of zinc roofs, hardboard wallsWith square cutouts, propped open by staves, that serve for windows,

The whole contraption planted on a concrete base, if lucky,Or on four concrete blocks. He plucks passing leaves that his fingersWorry into pastes, ranging from conditioner for his covered locks,

To backache remedies, to blood cleansers, to a cure for chiggers.He shows me his place, no electricity, no running water. No moreThan a single car crate, and a square lookout for green air.

I take in his worldly goods in a glance and back out the door.He figures modest dollar amounts he needs to run a pipe and wire.I stand by the entrance and wait for him to collect what things

He needs to give to a friend to take to a relative off the island.A banana tree angles upright in the steep yard, another thinGuava tree, laden with tightfisted green fruit like garlands,

Destined to soften and smell up the place and bring plenty birdNoise and nosy children, and through lush vegetation, a glimpseOf the sea, planed to perfection. All around stand a herd

Of similar shacks, variously sized, all uniformly poverty rinsed.The colors run into each other; most mixed and matched.I wipe sweat from the climb but more spouts for what I fear

More than cancer or robbery at gunpoint. I come from their batch,People with nothing to their name, just like how I was reared:A love with nothing to its name coursing the veins, a listening pulse.

The hill overlooks the sea of Port Antonio. Water with skySoaked in it, glistens as if to fulfill any and every impulse,Numberless coves shine with jewels planted there to satisfy

All our cravings. But the precious light, brittle really, playsTricks on me, and shifts from one shape to another as I clingTo my wish to transform these choked hovels on display

Into safer houses, sturdy retreats, and homes fit for kings.It is a crude wish for King David that I make as he ducksInto the open, cups in hand, with wine he brewed from fruits

He says he picked here (he sweeps our surroundings with a tuckAnd lift of his chin) and set months ago. I sip the spiritsThat sat for so long, small bubbles percolate from black tea.

I nod as my tongue and nose register perfume and paraffin hits.He wants to cook ital for me in my rented kitchen by the seaWhere injured French sailors rowed ashore to evade the Brits.

II

We clamber down the hill and he warns me, in our stop and goProgress, to mind a spot erased by rain or blocked with undergrowth.I ask him about his limp. He sliced his bare foot picking a mango,

Says he unwittingly stepped on a half-buried piece of rusty hoe.He cleaned the gash and stemmed the blood with coco leavesAnd green banana peel, heated, and applied in a poultice.

I moan about my sore heel earned as I hopped wavesAnd dropped hard on a flat stone in a sun-hurdling raceWith my two sons, from prone on sand one moment

To a driven buoyancy, salted and cool, the next. He regretsThe lack of capital in...