Poetry

A woman holding a golden apple in her palms
has crossed the boundary, uncertain yet hopeful.

Like the cruelty of clothes
belted
strapped
buttoned down
zipped up
these flat
pressed women
ironed hard
metal smoothed

Memory mocked us.
Thrust a long lascivious tongue

through the chiselled slit
of a viewing window.

“So crossing the river
and walking the path
we came at last to Kumasi.” – Kamau Brathwaite

Sunlight slithers, insinuates itself,
amid preening palms.

Dream at Graeme Hall
by Lawrence B. Bannister

GRIOT

(for Kamau on his 70th birthday)

at seventy
your voice
soft drone
balanced with quick guitar pick
finding notes
no one heard or knew.

Day One

I feel a thickening I’ve felt before
A denseness growing at my core
The calling of a wooden floor

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