Millicent A. A. Graham lives in Kingston, Jamaica. She is the author of two collections of poetry The Damp In Things (Peepal Tree Press, 2009) and The Way Home (Peepal Tree Press, 2014). She is a fellow of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, 2009 and an awardee of the Michael and Marylee Fairbanks International Fellowship to Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, 2010.
Her work has been published in: So Much Things To Say 100 Calabash Poets; the Jamaica Journal; Caribbean Writer; BIM; City Lighthouse, Yonder Awa, an anthology of Scottish and Caribbean writers for the Empire Cafe Project and most recently in A Strange American Funeral, edited by Freya Field-Donovan and Emmie McLuskey and designed by Maeve Redmond. Millicent is co-founder of The Drawing Room Project Ltd.
Yellow Dog
I
In the pitch black
shadow of a hill
the yellow dog rises, like a halo…
II
Under the tamarind tree
the grasses shoot-
the yellow dog digs them out furiously!
III
The statue’s head is rolling-
the yellow dog is yelping,
I closed my eyes and whisper
in tandem, ‘Amen, amen.’
IV
The yellow dog turns his eye on me.
I taste vinegar, think, ‘It is finished!’
V
The shame in me bent into a bow,
like the lapped tail
of the yellow dog.
VI
An old moon lifts through the air’s raw scent-
the yellow dog drags its belly
on the pavement.
VII
I hang my head in shame
having seen the faces that spat
as the yellow dog drifted through
my thoughts …
VIII
All I have seen is nothing
compared to the yellow dog
whose tongue hangs out at the
sight of
Everything!
IX
The sun goes down
The yellow dog is licking its groin.
X
Digging down to the earth’s core, I
came upon
the molten leer of the yellow dog.
XI
The world was asleep: a painting
in which nothing moved but for
the yellow dog’s jaundiced eye.
~
Rain Days
I watched with weightlessness little ones
bursting puddles as they pushed
off with naked soles against the wet
road, chasing shoes! The gutters broke;
torrents usurped their leather boats.
The streets were patent where wiggled once
the toes of sodden girls with tunic hems
hoisted to expose clear beads in mid-swell.
I was heavy, too heavy for rain jewels.
My mother said, “Tie yuh shoes-lace,
mind cloud-water pools, know only the dry.”
Not this ache for rain days
Now, regret like ring worm
bluing and young limes cannot heal;
these feet that restrained the heart
and kept me raw, far from the damp in things.
~
Conversations
At the standpipe the women hold
their bellies and swing the dented pails,
empty and dry as the loosening gold
that rises as the evening light flails.
As if there was no drought, no barren earth,
they gather, old fashioned urns, faithful,
waiting for some favourable word;
but the time trickles, and the waters pull
back, until only thirst is in this age,
and the urns are baked with sore regret.
Yet still they wait for water to delay
the hardening of their bodies with its wet
I hear their whispers rising dry as dust,
see faces; shadow-carved; see buckets rust.