Enslaved Dreaming

I want to be the master’s daughter
walking past these fields. She smiles
to see me work my back to bones
in fear of being whipped again,
her eyes the colour of trapped rain.

I want to know how white skin feels.
She takes her time, feet slow as water,
looks straight past my head, her body safe
in silk, free from the dust that fills my path
pulls down the sky.

She doesn’t see me stretch the ache
out of my arms from years of cutting cane
owned by her father and his son.
I am at war with them through all this work,
the girl I was killed further back.

Yet there are times beneath the stars
when I unfold what’s deep inside –
small flags kept still in sunlight – dreams
I’ll run away, find freedom in Jamaica –
a bed the master can’t disturb.

Or better yet – one glad, cold morn –
if hell could ever be so kind –
I’ll ask dear God to wash the black away,
fill me like an urn with their ice skin.
Life would be a book of first days.

Until then, I age each time I step across dark soil
the sun a flame so I must stop,
my body made of salt like in the bible.
Lot doesn’t have to tell me to go on.
It’s enough to hear six strokes on nearby skin.

The master’s girl stops now to open up a parasol,
each petal lighter than the air. My yellow dress
is filled with holes he tore, then set about
my private parts, a fist to plug the screams.
I could not feel my lips this morning.

Wonder what it’s like to have her curls?
I count but sweat falls in my eyes.
I stop at ten – gold magic falling down her back.
I want to be the same. To have a father
who beats as many as he owns.