Haitian Memories 1960s
I
Port-au-Prince
Papa Doc, threatened,
forbids snapshots of his mansion.
Men in dark glasses
glare behind giant steel gates.
Our sneakers brand us American.
A beggar, spying foreigners,
pinches her baby to bait our pity
but we do not fall prey.
Curses pummel our ears.
Overrun by a swarm of vendors,
we flee without paintings and carvings
that speak of Mother Africa.
An invitation to a voodoo ceremony
parades zombies in our heads.
Our shuddering senses shout no.
II Journey to Petit Goave
Long ride.
Overcome by sleep,
we lean on strange shoulders.
But the bus bounces and we are shaken,
stomach stirred, car sick.
Flood swallows roads.
Rivers scale embankments.
We disembark in the dark,
scan banks for alligators
we’ve been cautioned about.
We climb on and off again
as bus drivers test
the safety of the river-road’s depth.
Arriving at midnight,
we listen for the echoes
of drums in the hills
that fantasy foretold,
but fall asleep betrayed.
III.
Petit Goave
Heads filled with warnings
of island magic,
we dare not walk bare foot.
Do not want to return home
the jackasses they have warned
we would become.
IV
Petit Goave: The Darkest fudge
It is only mud.
It will do for now,
for they are alive,
and feign it’s
the darkest fudge.
They eat the clay
from which
life comes.
It is sweet.
IV
Petit Goave :Naked Truth
The plight of the poor
is a weight
we have never carried.
We bend steel, mix mortar,
build a foundation for a church.
Provide food for the soul.
copyrighted Althea Romeo-Mark 2010
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