No Better Way

There was no better way to come
to America, than in a ship rolling
around in water, turning
my stomach inside out

like a wobbly pregnant girl.
No better way to move
towards the new country
than looking through the porthole’s

crystal ball, where the ocean’s
churned oblivion tried to form
my future. Nothing better than
the liner’s stacks releasing

smoke, three staunch women
incapable of holding
their laundry in the wind’s
powerful howl. The rail

on the side of the ship, a fork
trying to mark the high sea’s
irregular crust. So, when
I arrived in New York harbour,

flat as a well-made bed,
The Statue of Liberty’s flame
was a ticket, a reservation ,
for a room she still held for me.

•••

was born in Bermuda and has a MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Her poems have appeared in Edinburgh Review, Stand, The Caribbean Writer, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead, Via, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review and The Cordite Poetry Review, among others.

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You’re currently reading “No Better Way,” an entry on tongues of the ocean

Published:
Sunday, July 18th, 2010 at 12:02 am
2010 June Issue, bredren and sistren, written word