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Callaloo 24.3 (2001) 737-738



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from Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring 1999)

A Ride to the Wedding

Phebus Etienne


I said goodbye to another piece of childhood,
watching the bride, pretty in organza bows and orchids.
She was billowed in joy, not like the morning
when she finally opened the door after I had knocked
for an hour, fearing she had overdosed. The woman
who had offered me a ride to the church turned up
the air conditioning in her apartment. I groped
for small talk as she rubbed her brown shoulders,
and leaned forward on the couch
to finish her cigarette, a tall can of beer.
She grabbed her wrap, walked into her kitchen,
stirred sugar into her ice water.
On my way to her bathroom,
she directed, "Don't sit on my toilet!" I obeyed.
We trailed the speeding limousine
ribboned in turquoise and she complained
about having cramps. When she asked me how I got
to her house, I said I took a cab. Six blocks
in heels was a long walk in the heat. She'd never
take a cab in this town, she ranted. She hated Haitians,
especially the taxi drivers. Using what
was left of her middle and index fingers,
nubs without fingernails,
she found a rhythm and blues station
on the radio. I pulled the tulle on my hat
closer to my eyes and hoped it wasn't
a Haitian who maimed her. Maybe I should have said
that our chained relatives could once
have been heading for the same auction block.
Maybe her peoples' ship docked in the Caribbean
where the captain sold my ancestor as he waited
for the end of an autumn storm.
But she did not want to hear me link us.
I didn't say that sometimes we drink
poor man's soda, sweeten our ice water, too.
I hid myself, as if defending what I am.



Phebus Etienne, who studied at Rider University and New York University, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and reared in East Orange, New Jersey. She has also published poems in Poet Lore, Mudfish, Caribbean Writer, and the Beacon Best of 2000.

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