The Brooklyn Rail

Wait

Hold

Listen.

 

Bareheaded

Tap three times.

Begin.

Call them each by name.

Scarville
Kennedy
Daniels
Gilcrest
Ocean
Williams
Listal
Calendula
Campbell
Sun
Montgomery
Forest
Sky
Cerasee
Include those whose names are not known.
Among the names in the recess to be retrieved.
Embodied.
Keep calling over the waves.
Until the names become lyric,
song,
whistle.
Alma!

My mother stands in the front yard of my grandfather’s house in Buxton. The soft morning rain soaks through her nightgown. The weight of the water compels the pink satin to hold onto the fullness of her skin. It’s been ten years since my mother’s feet have touched the fleshy soil of this land.

The air is familiar yet different, filled with the smell of freshly cleansed palm leaves, sweet saltwater, and the faint sporadic sound of crowing roosters. She closes her eyes and raises her face to the pouring sky. Auntie Jackie yells out to her from the veranda, but my mother does not respond. Instead, she lifts her hands and transforms them into a fleshy bowl. She rubs the rain deeper into her skin, smoothing it over her body like a fine lotion. I sit, tightly packed, on the worn wooden steps and bear witness to this impromptu baptism. I feel an odd tingling sensation moving up my back. My mother is speaking, but I cannot decipher the words. Slowly and carefully, she walks back to the elevated house. Each footstep leaves a moist trace of her hardened soles. As she gets closer to me, I focus on each clear bead of water collecting like loose ankle bracelets around her feet. I am transfixed. This is the last time my mother and I will be together in Guyana. In a few hours, the sun will push its way through the clouds, transforming all of this into a dry landscape of memory.

xxx

In the recess, shadows illuminate.
Clocking time doesn’t cling to our bodies.
We cease to be shaped by light.
We unfold.

It is an invocation. A stitch, a cloaking.

xxx

There aren’t too many places to hide
(even under water),
but there are crevices in which to uncover.

I hold myself.
Every breath is an echo in my ear.

I’ll never be found.

I close my eyes to listen.

The recess is the edge of visibility.

 

My body shakes,
Detours,
Flails.
Is cut and pasted.

 

Startled by saltwater.
Speaking in hydro-tongues,
Jumbled prayers shaped by occluded movements.

 

My eyes readjust.

 

The recess is spray-painted black.

 

My grandmother stands in the middle of a stark, singularly lit room. Small specks of light hit the wooden walls, and for a brief moment, I can only think about the history of wood and how beautifully striking it is when seen in the dark. Peeks of the night landscape come through the breaks in the boards. My grandmother waits. Solid. Self-possessed. Sovereign. There was never any other stance for Mewlyn Kennedy. The fabric of her dress is a dense magenta, blue, and white floral print. She asks me to help her finish buttoning her dress. The buttons are small, dainty, burdensome. Tears emerge. It feels as though my whole body is welling up. I cannot hold them back. It is inevitable. I have only one question: When? When can I see my mother again? She quietly smiles and gently shakes her head. “Not yet.” It is a husky and comforting negation. She then takes her finger and pulls her cheek back to show me her silver tooth. Darkness.

xxx

The recess is dark, but it is full of visions.

Flashes between heat and reprieve are speckled across my back.
Moments of joy and gravity.

Collapsing into dimensionless spaces,
Where sacred sounds are only heard by those who’ve been initiated into the shadow.

 

The recess is where I learned to speak.
xxx

My mother says she can hear my grandmother calling her while she sleeps.

I never tell her that I hear the voice, too.