Nassau, Bahamas
the old man
points me
down George Street
to the pirate museum
his fingers gnarled
and brown as a banyan tree
hair
ocean foam silver
eyes
wild cyan blue
already showing me
the riotous beauty
I’ll see in the wax figures
of Ann Bonny
Captain Teach
Calico Jack
this old man’s
earth dark skin
and seawater eyes
the Carib yin-yang
of duppy and angel
bondservant and buccaneer
the Bahamian brew
of his African and European blood
braided smooth
as the dreadlocks
on Blackbeard’s face
-----
Shayla Hawkins has been published in, among other journals, Calabash, The Caribbean Writer, Tongues of the Ocean, TORCH: Poetry, Prose, and Short Stories by African American Women, and Vwa: Poems for Haiti. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.
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