She knows everyone on the way to Monk’s Hill,
stops to ask for mangoes – they are growing everywhere
it’s almost a crime to pay.

At the overflowing bridge, men wash pink-skinned sweet potatoes
while the river steals a few,
she hollers hello and lets them know, tells me, they’ll fetch them later.

Stopping for ginnip breeds nostalgia
of her childhood in Guyana –
plantain, sour-sop, breadfruit –
always free, from neighbours,

says her brother doesn’t believe in apples;
he’s never seen an apple tree, so doesn’t trust the juice.
But her nephew, he eats strawberries in
banana cake and doesn’t know the difference.

She careens through mud; a carefree cowboy, calling out the sights,
arms wrapped around her waist, I am a jockey without her reigns,
holding on to every word, bracing at every hurdle.


St. John’s, Antigua, 30 May 2010