Haiti, 1992

1.

Confined in a modest apartment,

My family listened to an answering machine

Play the part of my uncle

We heard:

“He’s dead, Bobby. Our father is dead.”

This delicate news,

In my childish hands,

Felt natural and adventurous.

Being raised in the suburbs,

amongst the safety and sanity of planted palms

I remained hungry for tragedy.

2.

Inside our American home

When he was alive,

My grandfather frightened me.

His body small, deformed, broken.

Speaking solely French,

I never would understand

Stories he might have told me.

3.

My uncle transported us along unfinished roads

I observed the grim concrete,

The paths worn over

Kneading cement until it was smooth.

Goats, chickens, elephantiasis ridden feet,

The president’s caravan of black SUV’s.

Stopped us in the street,

Making the world a slow moving parade.

4.

Markets were guarded by men

Dressed in mirrored sunglasses, dirt clung to fading army fatigues.

Cigarettes dangled from their mouths,

Makeshift slings held up their arms, worn out AK’s and rifles.

I picked up a package of grapes,

my father replied

“That’s all some will make in a month.”

5.

The wake,

A mixture of French and Creole.

Language intertwined as rivaling siblings

A creaking organ sound,

Found space in the dense humid air.

Old songs, were sung

My mother mouthed the lyrics

Finding them like her childhood.

I was given a card, with an image of grandfather on the front

Looking off to the side,

Alone.

Inscribed within the card, a series of translated prayers

Nothing of my grandfather’s life.

6.

Near the entrance of the cemetery,

The remains of a man

Discarded

Atop a refrigerator box

His feet were ash stricken,grayish black

Dressed in blue jeans and a red shirt.

Shoulder blades gaunt, skin sagging toward the earth

Eyes gazing upward

To the stars

Counting on all the possible heavens.

His lips hung, motionless

In conversation with the flies

As if to decry

To all passerby

That beneath the decay

this skin is fresh.

7.

Atop the mountain,

I heard my father say:

“One day, I hope to be buried here.”

8.

Below, Port-au Prince stretched out across the land

The trees snapped, stripped

Houses gutted,

Guzzled.

The fruits of this country picked.

9.

In dreams,

I make my way out of a grave, crawling throughout streets

of no beginning or end.

Hungry

and alive.