SHANGÓ (FOR KAMAU BRATHWAITE)

GEOFFREY PHILP


Count dem: one, two, three, four, five bullet—

look like me did have chicken pox dat swell up

all over me back. But dem neva know

me woulda come forward stronger 

than wen dem lef on Pink Lane fe dead—

for yea tho’ I walk through the gullies of death

not one of dese baldheads—not even the last one

the one who say him was mi Idren—alive today.

And him never even waste a bullet pon me.

Push the blade under mi ribs an bus me lungs

You should see him face, fa him never think 

I did have the strength to pull it out and cut him

like a ram goat before a nine night. So if you think

you is a bull bucker, try you luck with me and see

what god you serve when you end up as a duppy.

Geoffrey Philp is the author of the forthcoming novel Garvey’s Ghost. He is working on a collection of poems, The Orishas of Ives Dairy. A graduate of the University of Miami, where he earned an MA in English, Philp teaches Creative Writing at Miami Dade College.