The fishmonger’s wife

Baskets of fish heave mighty wharves
of warm stench, speckling my doorway
like broken crabs—spindly legs askew.
.
Because I am a fishmonger’s wife
you thought you could visit me at night,
unaware
.
on summer mornings
I smell of conches, their smooth
white glide and sound of sea.
.
At nights your women sit in front of
mirrors with fairness creams, but I
claw through their mountains of dirt
.
with water-scabbed hands,
and their darkness seeps into me,
cutting across skin and muscle
.
leaving my teeth, eyes
so bright
they could be radium.
.
One day,
I will lift my skirts and breasts,
my bulging haunches,
.
peel layer after layer and see
how thick rays of that darkness
have soaked deep, become inextricable,
.
that on stepping out of my body
I will find my very bones have turned
black.
.
•••