“A Mother Sends Her Son Off on the Eve of the Bois Caïman Ceremony," a Poem by Sony Ton-Aime
From the Collection Konbit
If their language
you must speak,
son, make it yours.
By that, I mean
make it roll on
your tongue as you do
in the kitchen.
The R like a pin
on wet sticky flour.
The U like an oven,
an open I teeth out
both a grateful smile
and a caged tiger.
In their ears your S
should be hooves hitting
cobblestones,
but know unlike their horses,
you cannot tame souls.
When you chew on good food,
curl your E around your lips.
May it not be a reflection
of anything, less of you.
May it catch their hands midair.
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From Konbit by Sony Ton-Aime. Copyright © 2026. Available from Carnegie Mellon University Press.
Sony Ton-Aime
Sony Ton-Aime is a Haitian poet, essayist, translator, and the executive director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures. Previously, he served as the Michael I. Rudell Director of Literary Arts at Chautauqua Institution. He is the author of the chapbook LaWomann, the Haitian Creole translation of Olympic Hero: The Lennox Kilgour’s Story, co-author of the Haitian Creole course on Duolingo, and co-founding editor of ID13. His work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Consequence Forum, Poets.org, Idaho Review, Hunger Mountain Review, and Cleveland Review of Books, among others.
