I recoil from the whipping wind, crouch
fetally beside the table against the retaining
wall to wait for the next rumbling of earth.
A zealous student of civil emergencies I have
learned to protect the body in the middle
of even imagined cataclysm, printing
advanced copies of the blockbuster,
of how Indran will survive planning ahead
to be the last man alive on his high class block
up Morne Calvaire. But I will jump from
home to office, and all about, in this story
and believe still that I can make a straight line
of the most motley selection of competing
distractions, office door open, man waiting
patiently while a colleague inside speaks
for the two minutes we can spare before
the waiting room gets rid of the latest occupant
to welcome another voice into the daily cacophony,
and all that remains is to push the desk
to the wall, bend snug into a baby ball
and wait for the Blackberry to go ping,
and remain blinking, while the building shakes,
and the wind roars past the amniotic sack
stacked safely against the table’s legs.
Indran Amirthanayagam writes poetry in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole. His latest books are Uncivil War (Tsar Publications, 2013), Aller-Retour Au Bord de La Mer (Legs Editions), and Sin Adorno: Lirica para tiempos neobarrocos (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Mexico). Amirthanayagam won the Paterson Prize for The Elephants of Reckoning. He is an American diplomat posted currently in Port au Prince.
