BY GEORGE HENRY
From Aunt Zell’s porch, I see myself etched into clumps of baked coral
that have clambered out of the sea & up this hill
where they pretend to be rocks but only fool themselves
since every plant, lizard, goat, cow, dog, and person in St. Elizabeth
knows the difference between something that was here
and one of the nasty White things that came from the sea
So, I sit on a bench, near a colonial patch of coral,
beneath the red belly of an ackee tree,
turning its seeds over in my hands until I
can press my fingers into all the knowledge I know it has tasted
and for a moment, its smoothness pulls me into another memory
of walking along the beach where my name learned to swim
tracing the bleached spines of sea urchins with the tips of my fingers
letting my feet sink deeper into damp sand
as I soak in the cool love that the ocean laps with each wave
I am on Aunt Zell’s porch
but I am also on the porch of the house I thought my father grew up in
plunging gray croc’d feet into ant hills
gnawing on sugar cane until my teeth are sore,
my mind chewing all the green, Black and red things that
never seem to die here
From both porches, I hear the mumble of mosquitoes and lizards
and the crash of silence
against my little hands
wrapped around the necks of Ting bottles or brushing against gray braids
My baby teeth sinking into the golden crust of a beef patty I don’t yet know is molten
Releasing a cacophony of crumbs, and jolts of pain
that remind me to be just stubborn and never stupid.
Writer | George Henry ‘26 | ghenry26@amherst.edu
Editor | Mel Arthur ’25| marthur25@amherst.edu