any hope of visiting.
A dog moves up the street.
Nose skyward.
Tail up.
It runs to the head
of the funeral procession.
I remember the pallbearers of my childhood
who danced with the casket on their shoulders.
Women threatening to throw themselves
into the hole to join their husband.
Frightened dogs running among the graves
while the wind shook the palm trees
like a schoolgirl playing with her braids.
Death seemed so funny to me back then.
Later when I was a teenager
not a day would go by without
the bell tolling for someone.
Each time it made my motherâs blood run cold.
Death that people compared to a journey
set my own mind wandering.
Death could come at any time.
A bullet in the back of the neck.
A red flash in the night.
It appeared so quickly we
never had time to see it coming.
Its speed made us doubt its existence.
Life in the Neighborhood (Before and After)
A quiet neighborhood.
Very discreet.
A vendor sets up her stall
near a wall.
Then a second one comes.
Then a third.
A week later
a new market has sprung up.
And life has changed in the neighborhood.
A man running with sweat
with a white plastic water pail.
He hides behind the low wall
and vigorously washes his face,
neck, torso and armpits.
Then returns to the market.
How can anyone think of other people when they havenât eaten for two days and their son is at the General Hospital which doesnât even have enough bandages? But thatâs exactly what that woman did when she brought me a cool glass of water. Where does she find such selflessness?
Thatâs me in the yellowing photograph,
that thin young man from Port-au-Prince
in the terrible 1970s.
If youâre not thin when youâre twenty in Haiti,
itâs because youâre on the side of power.
Not just because of malnutrition.
More like the constant fear
that eats away at you from inside.
I remember the sun beating down on the backs of peopleâs heads. Dusty street, no trees. We all had the same emaciated look (wild eyes and dry lips). Thatâs how you could recognize our generation. We used to meet up in the afternoon in a little restaurant near Saint-Alexandre Square, with a view of the lumpy buttocks of anarchist poet Carl Brouard. This son of the solid bourgeoisie had chosen to wallow in the black mud, in the middle of the coal market, to share the poverty of the working-class people. There werenât just parlor poets tethered to corrupt power back then.
We discussed ad nauseam the absurdity
of this life while avoiding
references to the political situation
that were too obvious
because the poor quarters were crawling
with spies paid by the police.
Sharks in dark glasses
trawling the whorehouses patronized
by political science and chemistry
students who are always the first
to take to the streets.
Iâve been eating fat for three decades in Montreal
while everyone has gone on
eating lean in Port-au-Prince.
My metabolism has changed.
And I canât say I know what goes on
these days in the mind of a teenager
who doesnât remember
having eaten his fill
one single day.
My hotel is situated
in the center of a market.
At three oâclock in the morning
the vendors arrive.
The trucks full of vegetables are unloaded
and the racket runs nonstop
sometimes till eleven at night.
The powerâs out.
Impossible to read.
I canât sleep either.
Through the window, I watch the stars
that carry me back to childhood
when I would stay up late with my grandmother
on our gallery in Petit-Goâve.
I look at my poor body lying
on this hotel bed knowing
that my mind is wandering
down the passages of time.
I end up falling asleep.
Sleep so light
I can pick up the slightest sound.
Like those tourists
coming back from a night out.
There are so few tourists in this country
we should pay them to stay.
The high-pitched cry of a cat getting its throat cut.
At night alcoholics have a
A dog moves up the street.
Nose skyward.
Tail up.
It runs to the head
of the funeral procession.
I remember the pallbearers of my childhood
who danced with the casket on their shoulders.
Women threatening to throw themselves
into the hole to join their husband.
Frightened dogs running among the graves
while the wind shook the palm trees
like a schoolgirl playing with her braids.
Death seemed so funny to me back then.
Later when I was a teenager
not a day would go by without
the bell tolling for someone.
Each time it made my motherâs blood run cold.
Death that people compared to a journey
set my own mind wandering.
Death could come at any time.
A bullet in the back of the neck.
A red flash in the night.
It appeared so quickly we
never had time to see it coming.
Its speed made us doubt its existence.
Life in the Neighborhood (Before and After)
A quiet neighborhood.
Very discreet.
A vendor sets up her stall
near a wall.
Then a second one comes.
Then a third.
A week later
a new market has sprung up.
And life has changed in the neighborhood.
A man running with sweat
with a white plastic water pail.
He hides behind the low wall
and vigorously washes his face,
neck, torso and armpits.
Then returns to the market.
How can anyone think of other people when they havenât eaten for two days and their son is at the General Hospital which doesnât even have enough bandages? But thatâs exactly what that woman did when she brought me a cool glass of water. Where does she find such selflessness?
Thatâs me in the yellowing photograph,
that thin young man from Port-au-Prince
in the terrible 1970s.
If youâre not thin when youâre twenty in Haiti,
itâs because youâre on the side of power.
Not just because of malnutrition.
More like the constant fear
that eats away at you from inside.
I remember the sun beating down on the backs of peopleâs heads. Dusty street, no trees. We all had the same emaciated look (wild eyes and dry lips). Thatâs how you could recognize our generation. We used to meet up in the afternoon in a little restaurant near Saint-Alexandre Square, with a view of the lumpy buttocks of anarchist poet Carl Brouard. This son of the solid bourgeoisie had chosen to wallow in the black mud, in the middle of the coal market, to share the poverty of the working-class people. There werenât just parlor poets tethered to corrupt power back then.
We discussed ad nauseam the absurdity
of this life while avoiding
references to the political situation
that were too obvious
because the poor quarters were crawling
with spies paid by the police.
Sharks in dark glasses
trawling the whorehouses patronized
by political science and chemistry
students who are always the first
to take to the streets.
Iâve been eating fat for three decades in Montreal
while everyone has gone on
eating lean in Port-au-Prince.
My metabolism has changed.
And I canât say I know what goes on
these days in the mind of a teenager
who doesnât remember
having eaten his fill
one single day.
My hotel is situated
in the center of a market.
At three oâclock in the morning
the vendors arrive.
The trucks full of vegetables are unloaded
and the racket runs nonstop
sometimes till eleven at night.
The powerâs out.
Impossible to read.
I canât sleep either.
Through the window, I watch the stars
that carry me back to childhood
when I would stay up late with my grandmother
on our gallery in Petit-Goâve.
I look at my poor body lying
on this hotel bed knowing
that my mind is wandering
down the passages of time.
I end up falling asleep.
Sleep so light
I can pick up the slightest sound.
Like those tourists
coming back from a night out.
There are so few tourists in this country
we should pay them to stay.
The high-pitched cry of a cat getting its throat cut.
At night alcoholics have a
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