sugar

A poem inspired by my childhood experience living in the Batey... a Haitian sugarcane plantation community in the Dominican Republic.

gade anpil etwal
the house on la loma
the palo vivo smoke aroma
fingers thick with age and
trial by fire tested with fire
fingers thick with fire
thick gray smoke
curing the bedwetting boys
and training the dark brown girls
to keep their neighbors fat enough...

ban mwen an pyas...
sugar cane caps
golden flagpoles
sliced and tied and covered
in black bags for kite wars
boys reaching for green and yellow
and red and purple-stalked horizons
toes growing through hungry shoes
eyes bloodshot, faces swollen
cane leaves like sharp cactus grass
bloodshed for mud floors
m’ pa genyen!
Pa genyen! Pa genyen!

Konpanyi a gen toupatou...
a senke pese a libr’e calne bwey
(tough retired ox meat)
return company pesos
to company hands
in the company town
in exchange for
the dead slaves’ flesh
the cane-pulling oxen
loading the trains with
burdens measured in tons...
they pull away to the city
where the burnt-caramel stench
of money to be made
pollutes the sweet Caribbean air
burning my eyes
and blinding
the world

Author's Note

The non-English text is Haitian Kreyol, and some Spanish as spoken by some Haitian immigrants to the Dominican Republic (an accent rather than a dialect).

Reviews

[Emily Rae]

so descriptive, felt like I was there