Our Mothers’ Hands

balanced whole islands
of British shillings. Broke
chicken necks though yard chicks

were nicknamed pets. Executers
of all remedy against that dark alphabet
swarming irrepressible out of anthills,

behind-the-sink cracks. ‘62: Independent,
engaged, finger extended for the next
decade’s ring, the colony comes into

her overripe own. Over hills scarred
as shoulderblades from which plumage
once fanned, then to market, wearing out

and in callused roads, came ones trundling aches,
professorial, furrowed: phrenologists of fruit-noggin,
connoisseurs of sweet bruise. Sashayed to trace

lines in Jamaica’s own hand. Returned home
to knit tendons of memory with recipes,
with reflex to massage the raw patty

with spice, unspiral ripe peel
in one kiss-clean
clockwind, work that texture like patois

into oxtail stew. Craws full of starched English,
forbid to leave their set tables, we chew,
re-chew, till enunciation’s cleaned to bleached bone.

Off-trellis, their Catholic school cursive
sways on its root. My hair recalling childhood’s
signature cringe: its gel-pat flat lines, this

left-margin part, as if only reverent
penmanship might earn
the stray curlicues.