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Do you see? The bones of stars are falling,
crashing to the earth like trees, like greyed spears
again I find myself amidst a frieze of bodies
lost in our commune of ritual sweat
a hurricane is spinning Saharan
winds through the constellation of islands
they whisper my name from the muddy rows
of cane, reminding me, the flesh is sin
the trees ache in the light, their ashen limbs
a warning to birds: do not alight here
this tree which is not a way of breathing
of keeping your head above whipping waves
we praise in spit and surf to our God
but not to this sea which is everything
until I can not help but think that I
am again: a flesh and blood poetry
my sister can remember how to make
baigan, blistering bulbs on splitting flames
on the Parika bank of the river
a boy sells water out of a rice sack
in my office sits a stoic Ganesh
intricately carved out of fiberglass.
From Make Us All Islands. Reproduced by kind permission of Shearsman Books