The cold winters touch clawing at the window.
The need for change moves with the seasons, but the idea of you stays evergreen.

Hair flutters, beautiful in the wind.
Her power so tough, it's nearly a sin.
She'll wreck your world when she's feeling stormy.
But today, she's calm, not even a stir.
Waking her up just to look at her.
Eyes like two planets, orbiting my soul.
Wondering if we'd run away,
Would her touch still feel the same?

The ugly poetess
Over the housetops,
Above the dry blades of the sugar cane husks
I have known fear, I have known hunger
I felt the pain of a nail wound deep in my foot
I belted out the blues like Nina Simone
An era of reform: the moments of truth,

On top of the hill, lies a village in Barbados
Acid rain, rooftop leaks on to my bed
It was a rough year:
only food sources were rice and breadfruits
We lived through it all:

It was my destiny:
To love and to hate them:
those old fruit loops

Through the eyes of a uprising poet
The curving of his pen,
Somehow, he made amends, he purge
the smoky air,
the disgusting sight of the pig pens
out of his mind

lack of personal dental hygiene,
the elders lost their teeth
Grinding down on sugarcane, while they
awaits the big meal of the day
Supper!

With innocent eyes and achy feet
I read so many books for inner peace

My stomach was empty,
but my mind was at ease
To dream big while aiming high

Marlene, Delores, and Linda
Known as the vanishing three
Migrated to North America
Where a Barefooted child
like me wasn’t supposed to be
Eventually, I know I would have followed

I have woven my feathers,
while looking upwards,
In my little corner under the old rusty galvanizes
.
At the old country shop the vanishing three mothers
told me that I wasn’t pretty enough to leave the island
Words of hatred, mere words of discomfort
I felt my wings tighten against my rib cage,
My tongue, glued against my jaws

From that day forward the poet smile against stupidity
And spitefulness, she too had come to
Eat her words, the old shopkeeper

The poetess enter another line from that era
Uncaring beauty without brains
Where are they now?

I walked with confident down that street
The misty air moist my skin
The poetess return to the Island of Barbados
Without the sugar in her blood..
.

treetops break the uniform silhouette
of the hills.
the sky is sky blue
with faintest wisp
of cloud.
like grey hair.
i am aging too.
cars race past uncaring.
******* lines the streets,
Nina Simone asks me if she moves me.
almost nothing moves me out of bed.

Mi' Padre' was stabbed in a bar fight.
The cantina is the deepest of wells.
Mi' Madre' put mi' ropa in la mochila.
La pandillas tiene mi' hermano - He fell.

Madre' sold her finest of silver
To buy maquillaje to color my face.
She said, "Better that you should have her"
To the man who had come from The United States.

Yo era una nina novia.
El era un hombre mayor.
I wanted to run away fast, go back home,
But nothing was there for me anymore.

I was but only sixteen.
I had never been touched before.
There I was in such a new land,
Our cothes crumpled on the floor.

The whole time I kept my eyes closed.
I longed for mi' familia and home.
He held me and slumbered when it was over.
My tears were hot and I felt so alone.
.
Yo era una nina novia.
El era un hombre mayor.
I wanted to run away fast, go back home,
But nothing was there for me anymore.

I was told to learn to speak English.
To abandon the language I knew.
I did not speak of my heritage,
It was better that I was kept from view.

I learned to cook like an American wife,
And soon I could speak like the rest.
It was difficult, but I learned how to fit in.
I even changed the way that I dressed.

Yo era una nina novia.
El era un hombre mayor.
I wanted to run away fast, go back home,
But nothing was there for me anymore.

These days, I spend keeping shop,
When the children are still at the school.
They are the heart of my life.
They are named Sally and Raul.

The nights are the hardest to get through.
I still dream of my other life,
Before I was given to my husband.
But I love him now, I am his wife.

But,
I remember when -

Yo era una nina novia.
El era un hombre mayor.
I wanted to run away fast, go back home,
But nothing was there for me anymore.