FORGOTTEN STELAE

A kind of self blessing spawns in the glare, 
torn from reflections across a drain where 
raindrops gather to feed water hyacinths. 
Feeding eyes sweep across a bridge in ruins,
narrowing perspectives toward 
horizons where the sea hides other island 
ridges—

Hunger will not dissolve the mirage,
unless it becomes reality, like 
the memory I carry forwardevery- 
where I go: sinking in mud, with wagon 
wheels; in the fields, propped under the weight of 
cane, boiling in my seasoned syrup of 
sweat and rage inside me. The memory 
fritters my brain—

Put it down on paper, I want to 
remember. I want to break loose from this 
gilded cage, denying my voice its 
freedom to render the truth in simple 
syllables to stare close, face to face, with 
my people, who wait for history
to redeem their past in a single sunlit 
dose

of reparation that comes only once 
in a green flash when mind and body are 
purged of the pleurisy that hinders our 
benevolence with wagon loads of cash.
All we seek is to restore the birthright
we were taught to forget. That ancestral
knowledge preserved in other memories, 
not our own.