Pink Wall Clock
Like island time it slows
down, as if a pie where
the knife gets stuck
in the Suriname cherry filling,
the hand becomes weighted,
wobbly. The numbers, years
marked in icing on a child's
birthday cake. Hours passing,
flamingo stick figure legs
stride. The Empire sun sets,
all magenta skies and lacy clouds,
a strawberries and cream dessert.
Inner Tube
The bright pink inner tube,
a belly button I float in
age three, forever mothered
by the sea, rocking me
as if in a cradle. Waves
flow over me, stretch into
frilly tide like dresses I try on,
take off in a summer's day
of sea salt smells and heat.
The practiced thrill of
letting go of the soft sand
floor, leaping from toes
on point, to fly adrift the gulf
stream turquoise blue
with my nest under arms.
Sun Prayers
The images of the deceased African
Bermudians in the Royal Gazette
were heartwarming to me. Photo
complete with bio. underneath,
like cricket trading cards in death’s
ultimate out of the Somerset Stadium
game. Badges to get on the People
get ready, there is a train
a coming! for the above the ground
railroad trail. I want their faith
when I die. I want the dialect tones
of their voices, soft sun prayers
of sea wave sounds and lightning
strikes weather cutting the landscape
in two. Brimming with a habitation's
sea-weedy shores and habits. Lazy
moments when a tongue curls in heat,
a flame in a sermon's slow fire. About
the home of oleander maiden hills,
the marshy toad land, the fossilized
limestone earth where a body will
finally lie. Curved rib bones, like
scaffolding of the ships that brought
us here. I want these saints present.
Island Wave
The taxi driver beeps the horn,
raises his forefinger above
the steering wheel: the Bermuda wave.
Like the island’s Skink lizard,
peering above a banana leaf,
just enough effort. On old British
racing green Morris Minors,
the traffic signals would open
on each side, like the dewlap
the anole displays for mating and
to be territorial. The National
Geographic article says they change
skin for camouflage when in
new terrain, like the sun patterns of
shadow and light on the car's roof, conceal
passengers in its daily hide and seek
game, although each a.m. its fiery long
digits hail, hail at us from the earth’s edge.
Good Friday Kite
We pasted pink, yellow, orange
tissue triangles together to take
the bright craft upwards unlike
our history of ships downed
by one. Made of the kaleidoscope
patterns, I would see when I held
one to my eye, a sea captain
looking through a telescope for
lands unknown. The South Shore on
a Good Friday is a sky of handmade
kites with tails, like shooting stars.
A multi-prism window, with an escape
rope of tied sheets, less it flies
too close to the sun and burns.
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