To Find, To Be

by Nehassaiu deGannes

 

awake now: moths shocking the garden
as if bougainvillea or startled white
begonia have taken wing: beds (count them:
in the great room empty: kith not yet returned
from last night's excursion up into the bush­­­;
what if? on a hairpin turn: the earth careens
over the crevasse; and now an S.O.S–––
see sky's dashiki or morning iridescence
so much like war confetti over
the triumphal parade? stand. watch. how the hawk -
moth hovers. birds hover. grazing fish hover and 
you? does your lovely place treble above mine? 
might our dead ride in a car that out-threads
the light's green canyon? might we, its regal tow?

like startled glass; pandemic cans: wind 
a caution not to cry: not to rattle
rose-packed chapels with our grief? but hear
the gravel-crunch of tires, the tired
swinging open of the compound gates, thick
lazy slam of all four doors–––and voices
like so many bangles, bearing souvenirs: imagine
even the children are safe. cup each one.
touch eager foreheads to your own. consider
what trucks beneath the furrowed wheel: red dust
from the road. crushed begonia. its crowning toll?
the heart's earth-bound watery hack
un-freight red trebles, world: wail your cargo home
... if in the garden, nothing, but more moths.

 

deGannes+photo.jpg

Nehassaiu deGannes, born in Trinidad & Tobago, raised in Canada and now based in New York, is a grateful actor and poet with two chapbooks, Undressing The River, winner of the Center For Book Arts National Letterpress Prize, Percussion, Salt & Honey, recipient of the Philbrick Poetry Prize, and a book-length collection, Music For Exile, due out from Tupelo Press in 2021. Her poems have appeared in Callaloo,Caribbean Writer, American Poetry Review and elsewhere. 

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