Читать книгу Providential - Colin Channer - Страница 7

FIRST RECRUITS

They answered when the Queen

called, wanting constables,

dependables,

regulars to keep order after riot

rumbled to rebellion back in 1865,

the year impatience with the free

we’d got came out in uprush.

Thirty years nearly after slavery

and the liberty half cooked.

They’re kin to my mother’s hill people.

Tea dark. Strong featured.

Hair that gets comb teeth caught up.

Turning on a rush mat, a coir mattress,

lighting a lamp in a tatu cotched

on land with no title,

catching water,

dabbing on a little obeah,

dressing in the fashion

of the humble decent—

careful not to rip, stretch out,

alert for wrinkles,

palming down the seams.

Their minds were rank with the killings

when they went to sign up.

They imagined a hint of burnt wood,

remembered an odour of rot

although History had been clever

with the evidence, had left the dead

outside to menace, later ganged up

scared survivors into throngs,

quick and efficient from habit,

frugal by rote. Not a single finger

more assigned than what backra

thought it ought to take

for wogs to scoop

and chuck and barrow

blood and neighbors into pits.

Of those who came,

nine hundred plus were taken.

Sharp-eyes, big hearts,

plenty meat

between the blades.

Feet with arches.

Walking proudly. Traitors

falling into place.