78
Snot-seiging crisp
Cracks night air and
Strips summer's faded scabs
From leaky grips
Bursting gnarled in
Frozen's tomb
Three soul's furnace
Testify white
Steamy opaque
Breath is dragon's work
And life a screamed
Revolt against a
Liquid insinuating
Awake
Canadian ash
Coat my words
81
Our folks smuggle us
Corpo fechado-like in
Bargain harold snow-suits
Sporting lost 'n found mittens
We little mattieu dacosta
Motherf**ers break vestal
Planes of inter-galactic
White
Of star shingle
Of elder envy
84
We slide down
Time glazed
Child's mind mountains
Sometimes on rusted, skraky
Office chairs
(at least sunny did)
Sometimes on snow racers
3 or 4 to a ride
We pack berice- calcutta- hk, accra - style
Scarborough style, banna
More times though
We rode tattered flakes:
Cardboard anointed with
Backspun `megaforce' polish or
Fish-cake grease
Trapping friday night uncles'
Home-slaking
Six-love sketches
They each
Would lead us
Down
Down
Right
Down
The k**er's
Hill
Down
Winter's
Thrill
Down
Home
Flakes beneath
Descending
Alabaster steep
Freezing and glee shred
Baby-oiled faces
Soaked bright
We slice between
Knobby wrists
Bloom grotesque
In desperate
Resolute
Searching
Airy grips mock
Blinding nothing
With branching
Middle finger defiance
And bone screams
Of "spring will see me green
...know that
Spring will!"
Down
The hill
We land on argentine
And dare the krik? krak?
Gut rumble of sleep
Water waking
Inviting us to
Descent
We seem
Obliged
To crash
Krik
Krik
Krak
Memory's alchemy:
Gossip and worry
Would
Immortalise survivors
In hissed bronzes
Of hero and coward
Heart beats and rushing
Ancestors quiet even silence
And to the argentine host
We pour libation stillness
Wayside jason laughs
Laughs
Scared then prays sweat
Haze halos and
Ginger steps spirit
Us to quiet ground
We say nothing
This time scaling
k**er hill
"this time make sunny drive!"
Everyone laughs
This time
Stars creep close
As if to watch
86
Stinging
Cold snap shot
Beat danny chung's
Glove hand
For the first time
Or since anyone
Cared to remember
Sunny played who jim benning
His mouth ringed
With patty crumbs and
Freeze-dried hork
Pisses spirals onto
The white
"yo danny" he says, cupping topaz sludge
"you know you want this apple juice snow cone."
90
Home was
An mcm hat and
Xxx fat goose copped
In brook-nam, new york
Flatbush ave
Smuggled taskforce like
Across the kingstonian border
Line
Hiding, dax, 12"'s
Kicks and plastic bag
Dowries
That goose was my lair
My five finger
Discount accomplice
From kennedy to town centre
Fraternal danger
Eyes me on the lrt
I pull my hat low
And feel
For my blade
9-Trey
Was it flame or turbo?
Berner trail or featherstone?
Old patra new buju
Smoke and sweat
And bubbling
Her black on my beige
Leaving
Three .38 slugs
Sound scouring
Doppler ascension
And spark firecracker
Trances
When a body fell
Full of creeping cold
I hear sunny laughing
“f** it, star. jail? it fall from the sky here, star."
Seen: big cousins turn gun men
Blue steel
Grate ribs
Dead heat cool
Engine block hot
Brain white get-a-way cars
Trade kilo
Meters
For practiced spite
"see it deh? it's all 'bout falling from the f**ing sky."
We walk down
Warm and easy
Looking
Cool and deadly
Walking
To where
We'd chained
Our bikes
87
My snow shovel's
Catfish mouth
Scraping a
Beaded and greying
River bed
A work like
Triangle trade deep-sea
Dredging or ploughing
Straight and perfect rows
Then i
For stolen moments
Am
Grandad, great granddad
Grandma, great grandma
Wukking de groung
Up in de groung
Wukking de groung
`gorblinyuh, but wait
Plantation land selling out!'
"uncle, sennup
Pumpkin
From de groung
Eddoes
From de groung
Sennup cane from de groung
Don't forget the flying fish and falernum"
I say
Then dive into my
Crumbled pyramid
98
A bad one
I recall. i
Step outside
Evergreens
Sky reach
A jungle winter
Pounces all eager-like
Teasing breath with ice
Asthma
And incited thots of
Turning back
Home
I do
"yo, differently, back home
If it rain too f**ing hard
They ain't leaving they gates, king."
I hear sunny say
"they really don't know nothing 'bout cold."
Nah, they
Don't
Back home
Know
About these
Routes
99
This year
I swear
I will not spend
Another winter
Like
This
Here