They tell me that on the ship the sea was quiet.
I was too young to know the salvation of the land.
We arrived at dusk to the city of ornate kindling.
The delicate matchstick homes lit up
by orange lamps, the flow of a bush fire—
red on black, the sky swallowing the smoke.
Of course, Georgetown was not burning.
Our house at dawn was filled
with light through the jalousies.
I ate eggs, scrambled, aromatic,
with my greasy fingers, they were sweet
with jewels of gleaming scallions.
I remember this redundancy:
I remember, is a lie: I don’t.
I have never been told; so I remember.
Blue pale sky.
Lizards fat as my arm;
my parents sipping rum on the porch,
gay, tipsy, drunk, asleep,
we wailed from the light to arrive
at comfort, like the land.
My sister went tumbling down a hill,
she broke her crown; she still has the scar.
What can I tell you?
I remember everything, and nothing at all;
that we did not return by sea, but by air.
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