Religion, and: Boat on the Essequibo

Abstract

Religion, and: Boat on the Essequibo Shireen Madon (bio) Religion There were ghosts in the gardenwhen we were young, obvious as suns. Our shuttered, too-American homechoked with bougainvillea. We were careful to navigateinconvenient stories like land mines. Stashed sticks of sandalwoodin drawers with framed prophets. When Grandma came, she unpackedtalcum powder to whiten her skin. When I stopped praying one summer,my father lost his tongue in grief. That year, we strung the pinewith silences. Brush fires sputtered pathetically like crates of bodega pomegranates.That’s to say, we loved more poorly. When Grandma died, like an exoduswe emptied of language and gifts of gold. [End Page 129] We sell a little of our identity each dayuntil our bones are bleached but we are safe. All we can hope is to be bodied again,at war or not. Boat on the Essequibo In a dream, we’re sleeping on a boat on the Essequibo. It’s midnight, and our guide has the one, impalpable flashlight. The wind has washed up heaps of ghost nets onto the banks. Some leatherbacks are asleep or dead. Nightjars keep diving into shimmering rocks. A fat whale sunbathes on the coast, and the capuchins harbor in the canopy. The sky fades to a black as vacant as the river is wild. Dark surf overruns the balcony of this fiction. Somewhere we were careless. Once, we carried home bushels of bananas and sugared ourselves to sleep. When we woke, the furniture had been hauled away by the tide. The ocean’s giant tusks are unforgiving, says our guide. [End Page 130] We ate forgotten fruit from chikoo trees, and while you slept, I tried to listen to you breathe, tried to mount you like a fable. The river’s silk is unforgiving, says our guide. Its subterranean stories are carried to their storytellers’ graves. [End Page 131] Shireen Madon Shireen Madon holds an mfa in poetry from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Indiana Review, Poetry Northwest, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Greensboro Review, the Journal, and Margins, among others. A Kundiman fellow, she has been the recipient of awards from Poets & Writers and the Academy of American Poets. Copyright © 2017 University of Nebraska Press