Paul’s Realization

Give up the dragons tattooed on your arms

in blue and red, your proud captions

Not his ride-on pony, but its print on the grass. (    ) Galloping white space gathering its fields. Nicker whisper. Thunder burn. (   ) Once at Angelo’s grocery, I reached for a small boy. (   ) We thought, perhaps Rhode Island. Or a border town nearby. (    ) The stars on his face haven’t mapped

“An obeah-man never dies, sir — the Devil looks after him.”                           –Eden Phillpotts for A.R., Harlem, 1985 Somehow, you knew you were naked, in trouble. Something was wrong, because you didn’t feel sacred but tired. Knowing that brain neutrons were going hay-wire wasn’t fun. After the herbal sponge bath, you’d stand in the tub