Octavia McBride Ahebee Poems

she would part my hair in rhythms
using the pointed tips of grass
sharpened with her own teeth
making my scalp a canvas of walking patterns
...

I give you the curve of my back
contorted into C’s shape
supported by herring rods and cut vertebrate
in the crowded marché
...

Desiré arrives home
right before the moon falls into La Gonave
and the sun, coy, smelling of human waste,
ascends from its night visit into Port-au-Prince.
...