From Berbice to Broadstairs, my second collection, published 2006 by Mango Publishing, PO Box 13378, London SE27 OZN,

email info@mangoprint.com
Website: www.mangoprint.com

ISBN 1 902294 28 9

From Berbice to Broadstairs

"You're the only Caribbean I know", she says
and my tongue rolls back in my throat.
"Guyanese," I whisper, "Guyanese".
Guyana , not Ghana,
South America , not Africa.
I am neither a small island girl
Nor am I a region.

Behind me a continent is screaming
through the clipped teeth of conquistadors.
From Berbice to Patagonia
howler monkeys sing
of the black navel of Rainstorm
her emerald belly bleeding.

"We're looking for a black artist
for our Culturally Diverse Project."
"Potagee", I whisper, "Potagee."
Scurvy, yella girl, white nigger. "
Well actually I'm a Berbician,
just follow the scent of sugar.

Beside me an island is bowing
under the weight of memories
- the Wantsum *, Kurdistan
Zimbabwe, Croatia ...
Palms pause above a drum,
fingers over strings.

I remember another word for asylum:
the Berbice Madhouse.

       ***

The digger's chewing up the earth
between Broadstairs and Margate
between Broadstairs and Ramsgate
those stamp-sized cabbage fields
that make us feel distinct
becoming stone and glass and steel
tarmaced shopping precinct,
digger planting concrete embryos
monolithic missiles
where

girlies in their wedge-heeled shoes
flit fast-paced through the H&M store
clicking text messages to their mates next door.

Shop, shop, shop till you drop
Love, love Westwood Cross.

"Come far?" the taxi driver asks
"Broadstairs", I say.
"Berbice", I whisper.

Broadstairs where
Long Live Bleak House
the jeweller fits gold taps to baths
where Dickensian characters lived and laughed
and come Friday nights gob out
"Fuck yous!"
over Harbour Street.

Broadstairs where
house prices still trade
on imagined gentility
strolling on the promenade, admiring the sea
cool coffee bars and incomers from London
plaster artistic impressions on canvases
already breathing their own rhythm
imprinting their own dreams
exhaling the salt of centuries
each high tide snatches
never
to return.

But walk down Joss Bay Road
on an early autumn morning
up through the farm to the lighthouse
down to the sand and cliffs
where the English Channel charges

stand for a while and dream -

you might just hear a smuggler laugh
or a parakeet scream.

* The Wantsum River originally divided the Isle of Thanet from the rest of Kent.