Caribbean Woman

Caribbean Woman

By jhohadli

Her voice has a
Boom-Boom-Boom
Like a bass drum
Or a cannon
It tek up space
Hugging the hyped-up wind
To itself
And engaging it in
A duet
A riot of noise and motion
Like protopunk
Only without the aggression
For her voice bubbles
Like bennalypsoca or a heaping cauldron
Of near-done red bean soup
Well-seasoned and fragrant
It has the heft of a full bodied woman
The type you imagine
Fans the coal pot arch –
You know the type I mean
She might be skinny like Squeeze
(Who knows?)
But her voice has body
And the joyous lilt of a woman at ease
In her own skin
The kind of woman who
When grudgeful smadee
Skin teet’ and sneeze
“You get fat eeeeh!”
Look the joy-snatcher in the eye
And show them she steel
Because her voice might laugh –
Yes, it blast a good belly laugh –
But she, she don’t play.

copyright belongs to Joanne C. Hillhouse.

See other journaled poems and short stories.