Bury me under clamshells
and broken conch
shaded by baobab trees

We can make an island with the souls
of flip-flops and torn nets
where you will exile me

Shackle me to cloud forests
where even on a clear day
the floating moss will cloak me

Hide me in the dried wells of the Ténéré
which has forgotten its savannahs and
the trampling of longhorns

Press me onto insect resin
and wear me down at 78 rpms
until I become the garbled voices

of ghost sailors singing socialist hymns
at a ruined Molotovskaya factory
Build a coral stone church

slab me in a caoba crypt
to appease the heretics and burn it
so its soot can befall Yemayá zealots

Cast me to longline fishermen
that would rather eat meat
and rip me to a school of marlins

that will spread me like cigüatera
coming back once a year
with the rains

 

 

*
From Magma 87, Islands

 

 

Buy this issue for £8.50 in UK (including P&P) »Buy Now