I cannot swim and I will not drown.
Donika Kelly
1.
The year I meet granpa my hands mimic clouds.
Charybdis turning turpid pools
beneath his globes— vision I have awaited.
I ask if my father is who he says, run toward
whatever currents from his gums:
A gleeful boy, flees the jowl gnash of hogs
the bath of his mothers hands— thus, baptism
in the high sacred of the river valley, thus
his scarred left cheek, and discipline:
A truant tongue becomes its own
Father; all cadence of contraband evading
ultrasound; en utero kreyol birthed
itself stowed in the deep refuge of vessels
low, my mother-tongue passed down
manman’s canal subsumed in pawol—
Strident as a rapid, I want
I want to go
2.
They say it is grim. Faults rupture.
I learn the names as aftermaths
Léo/gâne Gres/sier Jac/mel
Tarnished— I am still
Unsure where to place the stones
Which the palace Was the market
Was plundered long before:
Molten sugar burials
Uvular approximants
Stolen from parsley mouths:
It is grim. But papa doesn’t cry
his birthday turned into a vigil
for the shattered Port-au-Prince
Manman slaps the back of her hands
Red.
How long, this quake?
This land shaken once
Again says the river. Says all her children
whispering
Anmwe, anmwe
3.
It has been an age of maroon. Our last
massacre, a false stream of alliances. After
David writes progress resistant writes growth
is beyond our control. Must generate
growth! Tremendous growing!
Estimations of how many lost flicker.
Let us help! Newscasts speculate
Tremor shaken landscapes.
Grow!
For us!
We have.
We have tried.
Their whispers forget
who has known the land before its name
proven with cutlass tides.
Some I love taste the sanguine.
Some I love wield its justice:
basking in saut d’eau.
Bodies lucid in the loa’s water.
Shaking the land free
4.
L’Atibonite, I barely speak your language. I learn
the work of lineage waist deep— take no fault
for what gods answer our misery. In the dream
I make no apologies for what calls me back
into its vein. Low, my river— reach down
