Ancil remembers
how he burst the babash bottle on the brow,
proud prow, of the pirogue 'Soul Provider',
let the corked up spirits free, leaping out,
dancing to meet and greet, placating spirits
of ancestors on a festive Sunday morning;
how his best friends, Brain and Brawn, belly-deep
in breaking waves, held the bobbing pirogue steady,
ready for benediction of the finest first-drop bush
rum,
clear and sparkling beads like holy water sprinkled
by the village priest on a christened infant's head.
Later on would come the feast of forbidden meats,
the soft-boned baby boobies, furred and not yet
feathered,
bigger than a yard fowl, plucked among the cactus
on steep, sharp, rugged crags of flowering rocks
by fearless and stiff-muscled fishermen;
hawksbill, olive ridley, green and loggerhead,
and iguana with yolk in ovaries, turtle-nesting sand
upturned to poach a hundred fresh laid eggs;
wild hog, 'gouti and tattoo caught out of hunting season,
whelks and conchs, all stewed in coconut and curry
with stiffly kneaded flour dumplings and blue food,
dasheen blue with starchy glue, cani yam and cassava,
horse plantains and green banana, iron for people power…
but memories that make mouths water can do nothing
to eat away a cramping hunger. Out here there is
nothing
but the scent of seaweed and salt water.
He remembers,
Ancil remembers.
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