The poem
The relatives are leaning over, staring expectantly. They moisten their lips with their tongues. I can feel them urging me on. I hold the baby in the air. Heaps of broken bottles glitter in the sun.
A small band is playing old fashioned marches. My mother is keeping time by stamping her foot. My father is kissing a woman who keeps waving to somebody else. There are palm trees.
The hills are spotted with orange flamboyants and tall billowy clouds move beyond them. "Go on, Boy," I hear somebody say, "Go on." I keep wondering if it will rain.
The sky darkens. There is thunder. "Break his legs," says one of my aunts, "Now give him a kiss." I do what I'm told. The trees bend in the bleak tropical wind.
The baby did not scream, but I remember that sigh when I reached inside for his tiny lungs and shook them out in the air for the flies. The relatives cheered. It was about that time I gave up.
Now, when I answer the phone, his lips are in the receiver; when I sleep, his hair is gathered around a familiar face on the pillow; wherever I search I find his feet. He is what is left of my life.