Not a lustful fisherman—
someone caught in the battle
between man and nature
as his eyes fill with ocean—
but a small black boy
dragging a stick against
the evening shores of
Grand Anse, Grenada.
She is leaning against the
pier post, in the sea,
so he sees her human first:
her dark skin, her hair high and wide,
pearled and shelled, brown-tinged in the light;
he almost confuses her for his mother,
wandering again.
He calls out to her in his child voice,
her voice is the entire Caribbean,
the splash of flying fish, the mosquito whines,
tinkling of steelpans, drums at the Mas
he’s too young to play in.
Jump down to me, she says, arms held out,
you are like my blue-black boy, my sea child,
and before he knows it, he is all wet,
she is kissing his cheeks, a hand through his waves.
He wraps his legs around her hips,
feels the cool sweep of fish,
like the ones his grandmother buys at the Carenage,
their shiny gray scales, dead eyes;
his mouth opens, an oh!
Now, the coast splits the sky from the sea,
his laugh mixing and becoming one
with the green wash, the orange clouds,
the symphony of this warm nature
wrought with a violent history:
water bringing and taking away
In the distance, the pea dove asks—
(“Fin” is also included in Terese Mason Pierre’s chapbook Manifest from Gap Riot Press.)
(Editors’ Note: “Fin” is read by Joy Piedmont on the Uncanny Magazine Podcast, Episode 36A.)
© 2020 Terese Mason Pierre
