down in the gully
The archive swells
Into an abscess
Into everything and nothing
Nothing and everything
Do you remember
Measuring the hems of our skirts
To make sure
They were decent enough
For our illustrious school
For the quarterly quadrille
For the illicit eyes of men
I don’t miss the fuss of it
But sometimes
I find myself tugging at
Something not there
No what I remember is
checking the almanac
To see that its election time
Sitting pon di verandah
To see the parade of
Orange pass by
Knowing the shrill
Voices ringing now
Will foment a green percussion later
Our people know music so well
Yes, is true
I loved to sing on my knees
At the church pulpit
Polishing the floor red
All done on Sunday, all like allegro
Wah bou you
Can’t say I feel the same
All music is elegiac to me
Even dancehall?
Especially dancehall.
Girl, please, move and gweh
Look how much time you fulljoy yourself inna di dance
You had a waistline like acid
I did
You did
I know but that’s not what I remember now
Weh me member is a red violation
Punishment under the cellar
All the acres of sugar now covered in rubbish
Using a macca tree to carve runes in my skin
My nine night…
Ok girl sure let’s listen to this
A conversation between two schoolgirls walking by takes up space:
Yuh hear who move uptown?
Hmmmm yuh see who never lef?
Kay-Ann Henry (they/she) is a Jamaican writer and artist based in Miami. Their poetry explores memory, migration, grief, intimacy, and inheritance, with an interest in landscape as both emotional and historical terrain and in the fragmented ways personal, familial, and diasporic histories are remembered. They are currently an MFA candidate in Image Text at Cornell University. When they aren’t writing or making art, they are reading birth charts or frying plantains.
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