Chapter Eight

Six years in the fifty years, two years to the fifthiet year

When i was a child, my mama used to sing me a poem when i woke up from the nightmares. She'd wipe my sweat and brush away the hair sticking to my face. 

These hands

 have subdued stubborn jungles

unmasked fertile groves

and plumbed the seedful promise

of loamy plains

The hands

calloused like a tortoise shell

have tended tendrils, joyous,

in their leafy dance

on the spine of stakes

hoed heaps clean

unearthed the venom of wayward weed

-she'd pull my hair playfully and smile down on my giggling face-

These palms

have lost their lines

to the mahogany handle

of a thousand machetes

the finger crooked by constant clutching

-'like you know who', she wiggled her brows at me and i laughed, 'daddy'.

'Ahh you said it not me'-

These hands 

ha