One good thing about music / when it hits / you feel no pain
—Bob Marley, Trenchtown Rock

When her body is a compass
bearing South, and she is crouched
bare-toed and feckless above steaming pavement
poised to give birth to drum or bass,
Red Bull triggered at the wrist,
hips a bouquet of cackling fingers,
lips two hummingbirds aimed for flight,
the Glock-Nined baby brother
she nursed from croup
with lavender oil and Cat’s Claw bark,
for whom she turned a fist of nothing
into school fees and uniform,
and whom she will bury
in St. Andrew Parish Church Cemetery
once the sun fully rises,
feels more like a brilliant toothache
her tongue worries,
than a tumid and wild devastation.

-Idrissa Simmonds, Crab Creek Review

Tagged: Bob Marley, contemporary poetry, Crab Creek Review, dance poem, Idrissa Simmonds, Idrissa Simmonds poem, Jamaica, Kingston Jamaica poem, literary journal, music, passa passa, poet, poetry