Olive Senior Poems

Fire at the core
Necklace of ash, stone, coral.
Islands emerge, submerge or shift
with continental drift. Islands
are not immortal. Without you,
islands could never be. You
are the portal. Islands are born
from your longings.

See how easy:
The spoon stirs up the void
Seabird drops its egg
A sand-grain launches itself

You blow breath on the ocean

Something breaks out on the face of the water
...

Rooster

As long as a Rooster somewhere
is angry enough to claw at
the sun blood red rising and
pull it through, day will come:
the world will go on.

Hen

Woman luck lie a dungle heap, fowl come scratch it up.
- Jamaican saying

Some find you loud mouth and simple,
for every egg laid a big announcement
a cackle, some find you
the broody hen, not knowing all
is meant to throw spies off the scent
of your blood's secret: you know
the sky isn't falling, geese don't lay
golden eggs, superior knowledge
resides in the feet.

You are mistress of maps to the under
layer, to buried treasure. Why else
do you nod your head and give thanks
as you sup? With every scratch,
woman's luck you turn up.

Guinea hen

In Granny's eyes, our foremost barnyard warrior is not
after all our fierce Rooster or surly Turkey Gobbler
but mild Guinea Hen, her badge of office her spotted
feathers. She stands on guard at that barrier they call
Reputation. For Granny explicating the difference
between Good Girls and Bad always ends her homily
with warning as fact: Seven year not enough
to wash speckle off Guinea Hen back.

When Granny holds up Guinea Hen as the symbol
of spoilt reputation, we study her pattern and interpret
Granny's warning to mean: Not that you can't do so.
Just don't let the world know.
Never let the spots show.
...

Always
like the futile march of crab-armies
from mangrove fortress to the beach

Always
like the palm-fringe waiting
to be breached

Already I know, the moment you land I
become islanded

In the shadows of the rain forest
I wait in submission

Amidst the trembling of the leaves
I practise hesitant discourse

Always
my impenetrable heart.
...

My mother wasn't christened
Imelda but she stashed a cache
of shoes beneath the bed.

She used to travel to Haiti,
Panama, Curacao, Miami,
wherever there was bargain

to catch - even shoes that
didn't have match. Back home
she could always find customer

come bend-down to look and talk
where she plant herself on
sidewalk. When the hurricane

hit, she ban her belly and bawl,
for five flights a day to Miami
grounded. No sale and her shoes

getting junjo from the damp (since
the roof decamp) and the rest
sitting in Customs, impounded.

My mother banked between her
breasts, lived out her dreams
in a spliff or two each night.

Since the storm, things so tight
her breasts shrivel, the notes
shrinking. Every night she there

thinking. Every morning she get up
and she wail: Lawd! Life so soak-up
and no bail out. To raatid!
...

I'm walking on this dark path overhung with hibiscus,
bougainvillea, when suddenly, an opening to the sky,
and in my face, this great, big, overpowering moon, in
silver. Thank you, Moon, for showing your most dazzling
self tonight, dimming the stars, seducing me from gloomy
thoughts, from citylight. I know it's your best face because
each month I watch you grow fat, then waste away on
some celestial diet before you disappear. No mystery there.
I know your ways. Soon a new you so svelte and
trim will start coming round again - until you lose control
and gorge to almost bursting. I can tell by your patina
on what you are feasting. This month it's the metallic you,
with hint of quicksilver, pewter, antimony. At other times,
there's the warmth of liquid amber, of honey. Though you
have never failed us yet, you tantalize with the uncertainty
of never knowing how big you'll get. That makes you
almost human. Not like that Sun who acts as if he's so divine.
I know comparisons are odious, dear Moon,
but such self-discipline is hard to stomach. He comes
showing the same predictable face day after day: no fat,
no shrinkage, no blemish. He does get a bit red and
wobbly some afternoons (bad-minded people say, from
drink!). I'd like to think it's just that sometimes the old
fuddy-duddy can't wait till he's out of sight to change into
his old red flannel shirt and relax. By doing a two-step.
...