The Crab-Catchers.
​
Popping torchlight brought
the children and their rippling shadows
to the morass where the bush-crabs
rested at the mangrove’s edge:
Crabs up to their bellies in mud,
seated by their doors. With giant claws
pillowed on sludge, their dotted eyes
watched shadows passing before the moon.
Each child, armed with crocus-bags
and bottles of light, looked like fireflies
caught in the thickets in the night,
with mosquitos playing Jonkonnu on fifes.
The crabs, seeing the darkness exploding
with light, turned away from the moon.
They scrambled on their stiletto legs
and dashed down their watery holes.
Stretching and reaching
through the escapees’ doors, with optic hands
the children brought the crabs back
to face the knots in the burlap bags.
Now tip-toeing on their neighbours’ carapaces,
they foam and watch the sky from the bottom
of a drum, waiting for a cloud to stand still
before the mongoose sun.
Lady Owl.
​
She remained the patoo in the pear tree,
across the wire fence, in the pasture lands,
at the back of our house. She was hooting
again, calling out late at night.
Lady owl, our nocturnal priestess,
would visit once a year,
dressed in white turban and a pencil
tucked behind her ear.
She would mutter as she scratched lines
on the kitchen floor, clearing
the house by lamplight of evil spirits, duppies,
and demons. She was our patoo aunt, lady Alga with the deep
round eyes, great for spotting lizards, spiders,
and the supernatural.
She said she had the gift of sight,
the ability to see at an angle no one else could.
To prove her point, she would spin herself
twice round in her loose frock,
wheeling her body with her arms pinned
tight at her sides. As children, we would wake
to find her marching through our bedroom,
carrying her Home Sweet Home lamp
and hooting the name of the person
she said would die in a fortnight.
The next day, the dogs would begin
their ritual digging in the flowerbeds,
while Johncrows circled above the chosen house.
When two weeks passed and the funeral
did come, we children learned to mark her words.
On her last visit, she rushed through the hall
in her long flowing dress,
growling and raising her arms, tapping
on the low board ceiling.
Her brother’s name was on her lips: Coolie-man.
She said she had seen his name in the book of life,
that he had come to her bedside that night
and roused her from her midnight dream.
Our father, eyes still heavy with sleep,
took her by the hand and told her their brother
had died the year before, that she had predicted
the sea would take him almost a year
to that night. But she hooted Coolie-man
through clenched teeth until we all
went back to sleep.
When daylight came our lady owl had disappeared,
leaving her headscarf behind like a shroud
airing on the bamboo chair.