"rendez-vous in haiti"

We dug toes in red-orange clay,
ran barefoot in clear rains,
in search of a warm, dry place.
lived on Rue Royale, between Piety
and Desiré. Claimed the silence
inside the old slave quarters,
shotgun houses with peeling paint
and shuttered windows.
Shoved carnival colored postcards
in rows of mailboxes
made of zinc and copper,
branded neatly with
bronze antiqued plaques.

Below sea level, houses of the dead
floated by on their pilings. We stared
at the boats resting quietly against the shore.
Remarked on how different they looked
outside the media's harsh glare.
Glided past boarded-up houses,
stunted fields of sugar cane. Inhaled ghost laughter
drifting in the fragrant air, flitting by on the
plumed wings of a wanganegresse.

Someone sang "limonade" as they
sauntered down the windless street,
their voice rising above the last bus
rattle. An old woman, hair wrapped in a gedde
frowned at me, then smiled and called me
blanc. Me with skin the color of macassar ebony,
had scrubbed hard but could not erase American funk.
I knew then I would always be a stranger here,
but rather this than a Hollywood zombie, neither
dead nor living. Every night, the ferries whistled,
sounding old imperatives, I dreamed of springs a hundred miles
inland while underground rivers played the lethal
blues of heated whirlpools. The city turned slowly
on the current as we slept.

- - by Sheree Renée Thomas