Salty liquid dripping faster than running yard to yard

they were all coming for you

your clammy tenacious grip on squawking stolen bird

as you brined in your own perspiration

Boy! That soup wouldn’t have tasted good anyways

but you aren’t there now

to taste mwiri pepper, broad leaf thyme and garlic …

what were you thinking to stoke primal fires so ?

they had the rage of adrenalin when they gave chase

a rush collectively higher than the kaieteur

as they tied you up like a rooster in Stabroek market

and then anointed you with sugar water

it would be a baptism by fire

you sensed it and you remembered God perhaps

or felt betrayed by Moses and his ten commandments

for he did not magnify killing to stealing

Or the pain clouded such frivolous thought

when you were to the taste of all those marabunta or acoushi

or other such legionary ants

that clambered all over your sweet and sweaty body

a strange sacrifice it was

man for bird …

or man for crime

or man for self righteous rage

I apologize for the horror of the pain

but I cannot make it mine

It is too much to endure even in poetry

or in remembering

even if the memory is borrowed

I only hope you didn’t have to beg for death long

rest in peace …

.

.

.

Because we do terrible things and some stories need to be told.