Mervyn Seivwright

I am glass

shattered

on the floor

in a seventeenth

century home

of echoed space. 

My daughters

away in America

across the Atlantic 

Ocean, their voices

vacant, reverberates Daddy 

I’m hungry. Can we 

watch cartoons? 

I don’t wanna clean my room,

Daddy―wake up memories

filmed in mirrors 

I pass by. Now scattered

onto the hardwood

where I seek

a torch to crystalize

a broken father

together. Their distance

has me viewing

illusions of their white

and pink bedroom

they danced in.

I smell lotions,

hair oils, tulip scented

tween perfume

passing in a draft

the wind funneled

beneath the window 

seal. I wonder,

have they forgotten

me, is their image 

of me tainted, practicing

parenthood, 

never knowing 

the exact science

that has me 

in bits and pieces.

I. 

Nottinghill was a slum village, 

West London, run by high rent 

Slumlords. A place of 1950’s access  

called home by Caribbean citizens 

of color in England’s KBW—

Keep Britain White, building 

a sanctuary from old-crumbled stone.

We cherished our terrace homes 

as a place to welcome weary feet, 

not dirty children’s play, us gaining favor

assist in decorating colors of island brightness,  

mirroring home from the dark mist clouds.

II. 

Each front room layout 

was coloured with shamrock carpet,

crimson settee, motif wood-grain coffee table,

wooden crystal cabinets,

filled with glass ornaments,

bright butter-glass Bambi deer,

hibiscus horses, teal tigers,

sitting on starched crochet

and white lace cloth.

A radiogram sat in corner

playing soca, old time reggae,

Jim Reeves on 33 

and 45 RPM wax records,

filled with hard drink 

mini bottles of rum, sherry, 

Baby Sham, Yawd beer.

Walls decorated with flowers 

embossed in infinity patterned wallpaper,

while a black-velvet scroll-map of Jamaica,

reminds of pride next to family pictures,

a three-dimensional Jesus image,

welcoming visitors from unwelcomed streets.