Two Poems from Girl Before Country

Blind Date

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a room
and the air is
still

My Black breaks the silence first
and says: "Wassup, where you from, fam?"
to root itself in the present
where it has made a home for itself
in places meant to be its hell

My Caribbean says:
"I am the smallest part of everywhere"
to scatter its spores across fields of Time
to reach for places stranger to a tainted touch
to thrive in places it shouldn't
but it cannot see past its next breath

"Where are you from?"
my Caribbean asks

And my Black replies:
"Everywhere and nowhere"
becomes the echo of a self caught
between past, present, and
the hope of a future

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a breadfruit roast
and one marvels at the way the embers
burn the skin’s surface hard
while the flesh within softens
the other is all cut-eye and suck-teeth

My Caribbean says:
"Like the breadfruit 
the castle of my skin is steadfast”
My Black wonders
how much skin is something
other than stronghold

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a church
and one
kneels at the altar with
teary eye and psalmed tongue
and unshakeable belief
The other
is a constant crisis of faith

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a carnival
And one
puts itself on parade
The other
is looking
for the playhouse of mirrors
designed to warp its self-image
beyond
recognition

My Caribbean says:
"Come leh we cut loose”
facing the world in freedom
forged on its own terms

My Black
is trying not to lose
the ties that connect them
entirely

My Black and my Caribbean
walk into every room together
hoping to return to the days
when their relationship 
did not feel so
forced

Soung

Write me like I soung 

En’less
Continuin’
Like uh dreem –
Ain’ nuh shure way tuh tell
Part I en’
Or begin

De las’ consonant soung 
Doan mean de same ting tuh me
As it duz tuh you
In my langwidge 
It soung like uh full sto(p)
In de middle uv uh t’ought
It soung like separation 
But I like de feel uh familiarity
From words runnin’
One intuh de nex’

Doan try tuh correc’ me
Doan try tuh fit me
Intuh a schema you expec’

I ain’ ment tuh be easy 
Fuh you tuh translate 
Some tings ’bout me 
Only I cuh say and mek sense 

Write me like I soung
Den talk me out loud 
So you cuh hear de music in me