I am the green-hatted imp
that evolved from the accident merging
of anemic saints, colonial education,
a diet of dusts, decay and hope.
A brown Alice in third-world-land.

I am what happens to my country’s
best sons and daughters,
thrown over seas
to save the tipping boat from sinking.
Made to scrub toilets all day
our bachelor of arts certificate tucked
inside our dark cabinets of dreams,
where incidently a smiling picture
of a dislocated family is propped up
each member like a massacred limb
strewn all over the globe, digging
from a reservoir of love, dug so deep
this well, dug so deep
blood gurgles and spits to accomodate
the need of my kind who draws from it.

I am the walking improbable laughing sorrow,
that leaves a trail of leaves and lake water
tears everywhere I go,
I still have the scent of the forest,
and the acacia is still heavy inside my heart,
my people left their bones in my hair.

I am a stranded hurricane,
flitting inside the house
cleaning this and that,
waiting to pile my leaves of stories
when the weather is better.

01/06/2013

Author's Note: and the woman beside the green-hatted imp is the woman who saved her

Posted on 01/06/2013
Copyright © 2024 Johanna May