offered you nothing
but your fear of drowning.

How you crouched inside the palm
of a breadfruit leaf, sneezed black
feathers and cried all night,

already soured
to our half a life.

You wanted the breast and the bottle
and your thumb. You never learned
how to choose, so you never chose me.

Beneath the scar of our thunderstorm,
small bodies pressed navel to navel,
we resigned to suffer our two halves,

whole worlds existing between us.
Our silence. Our stomachs burning hot
in the Kingston sun.

Back then I wanted more of you
than you could give. Wanted to strike
you down with lightning,

and watch you struggle
with the sea. Will your hands
come shattering at my teeth,

or your hair, which never
stopped growing, come strangle me

in my bed. Where you found me embracing
another woman; the helix redacted.
The body unsexed.

I remember you spat
and this body unfeathered,

your tongue lodged with disgust
in my naked rattle.

Was it then I became something
you could no longer love, another
stranger you pass alone in the street?

One toothless bird shivering
soundless in the air.

Brother, I reached for you
and there was no one there.