Lawrence: Yesterday, all my letters to you returned. A heavy block wrapped in twine. A note from Blokeman was pressed between them . "He has left the hotel, your brother now lives in Spanishtown." Spanishtown. Kingston is more beautiful. Kingston is a modern city, A port city, through which, it seems, all the world must come and go. Today in Miami, it is a Wednesday in October, and in Kingston, a Wednesday in October, but in Spanishtown... There is a narrow place, your place, where shoots of grass are chasing the cracks up and down the sidewalks and dogs, forgotten and nameless, trot thinly in the streets, And a black man in a white shirt leans against the wall of your house. He no longer stares as you come and go But he should. He should stare into the window where you sit. He should see that your eyes are darker than his own, He should know that your hands are as fine and delicate as coral. He should reach up on the tips of his toes and kiss your brooding mouth. The land that Kingston sits on is wonderfully fertile but perfectly dry. The port city through which,it seems, all the world must come and go. It cannot conceive the life it promises, cannot sustain its aspirations. I left. And you.. You did not stay, but you did not leave. You merely went further in. Spanishtown. beyond the Liguana plain, in the Blue Mountains where it is cold at night, and the dogs trot thinly in the streets. It is fine in Miami on a Wednesday in October, and we could love in a large house with many rooms.
-Shannon |