- Banjo as a dark girl, and: She talk like this 'cause me Mum born elsewhere, say
Banjo as a dark girl
undiminished beryl.Many flood-plains.Life-flame—elegantturn—considerationof a still kind. Color
up on her haunches.A hubbub rememberingwhen blood cannot, lovebeing more than the onlyminiature. Each nightfall
chooses, and is injured.Caribe women know this.Sun up until moon-crest,they kneel but their tonguesare ever-feral and unchecked. [End Page 9]
She talk like this 'cause me Mum born elsewhere, say
Ackeeand talk funny—make things up,
but say apples, apricot—then say
ackee—both fruit and juice make
you feel good from the
Beginningwhen she insulted Episcopalian
Jesus, singing (top of her lungs)
big-inning like a good
Caribbean—or potato or po-tay-toe to a fool
who say Caribbean—she laugh—
Cari-bee-an…she say
Dasheen:US got greens, but me mum got
something else like
Egretis same yes but
Fiddle-faddleshe never said, afraid of the
Government& warned: enunciate the first n
like you got good schoolin' not
Hard knocks,as in school of—
[is thismaking any sense?] Are you hungry for
jumbee soursop?foul-smelling, bitter,
good for make you suffer and
keep quiet(this has nothing to do with mum being
from Bequia [she say Beck-way]) she say [End Page 10]
Legolandbut her mouth waterin' for
leg of lamb and
moneynever got enough where you from and
Nurdleas in a game of cricket when
the batsman nudges the ball
around and into a pureé of
onions—never make a meal without `em.
Pamela,(my 1st name she never call me) like I'm
Queeryou mean like the guy who lived
in the house behind ours? He drink
Rumthen
SweetsThe sound when suck
air through teeth like
low class people from
Trinidad…(sotto voce) your father's people,
not sweet, sail from there to
USAthen again, mum was never truly
n a t u r a l i z e d like a
Vegeee-tublespinach, peas, or beet soup
causing—ha!—
wee weebut no one say this when
referring to piss & need some
X-raysthat don't show the way to float on a
Yah-chit or yacht& make we laugh when mum butcher
English except she remembers she's a
Zebrathat is same as you say when you
mix the black & white— [End Page 11]
Lynne Thompson is the author of Fretwork, winner of the 2018 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize She also authored Beg No Pardon, winner of the Perugia Press Book Award, and Start With A Small Guitar (What Books Press). New work is forthcoming in Black Renaissance Noire and Ploughshares.