Iotas
The earliest memory I have of seeing wonder in liminal spaces
is the Lac Rose in Senegal, a fairytale pond, and I am a fairytale princess
pirate mermaid in a pixie dust soup
spent my childhood in a mythology of sorts
halfway between the color and the puckered mouth that always tried to suction it away
I was three when the Dakar deluge brought an avalanche of ants in its wake
the first I ever touched on terror, a phobia that would latch onto me forever
not the rain — the rain I loved from the moment it sprayed my arid soul — but the ants
swarm of fitful frenzy in my grandmother’s garden
taught me how easily chaos could upset comfort
But that’s not all I remember
just as they streamed around me: floating
swept in my uncle’s solid arms
we became an island in the middle of the crawling storm
and just as I had known fear, I knew what love was
Even when years later a cloud of locusts descended upon Nouakchott
and ate through everything
sunlight crisscrossed, the air a click-click of wings
and snapping pinchers
it felt prophetic, biblical, formidable in its scale
Later, in different cities, we would try to replicate the feeling of being protagonists in a magical realism season, and although it came close, was never really close; Arctic Monkeys and golden colored hues in Chicago; streetlamps that pulled the focus onto blue moon territory in Washington DC; in Libreville, freckled wetness dappling the sound of the world; Paris bringing with its scent of blossoms a lyricism from another time; Nairobi and its multitudinous textures, like running fingers through multiverses
In Montréal we almost made it, losing hours in the darkened rooms of the Dollar Cinema place that smelled of vinegar and feet, watching films we didn’t care for but felt we had to, because they were essentially free and we could afford it, enduring one too many found footage plots and letting tolerance run its course, and knowing we deserved more, but bonding over the shared ridiculousness of this patchwork kind of fun
When I think of childhood I think of
all the times I got lost in old mattress stores in Maryland
believing we would die during Y2K and relishing the thrill
reading Archie comics and responding to Veronica, but pretending I was a Betty
wandering in the labyrinthine halls of the Jeepers arcade
quiet summer shades, caterpillars curled around my index
fevered days off from school, watching science documentaries under covers
splitting hairs between Baby Spice and Sporty Spice but really feeling Scary
rice pudding, power outages by the living room fire
Christmas lights and snow in the twilight in Virginia
shredded gift wrappings wreathed around poking toes in socks
life changing crises that could only paralyze a seven year old
But it never comes close to when I was this high, and I could barely reach the tabletops, inhaling the ample heat of the West African monsoon; not close enough to the tang of the Madd and Toll seeds, as sour as they were sweet, the roasting peanuts on coals and sand; kneeling by my grandmother’s feet as she sent for beignets and seared corn cobs from passing vendors. It never comes close to seeing my mother be a daughter, see her gently chided by her uncles, to watching telenovelas with my cousins until the sun came up, to lying on woven matting and simmering peppermint candies in buttermilk in Rosso, to watching B-list 80’s action films my aunt always took too seriously
When my grandmother died I knew
iota by iota I would liquefy and ebb apart
until I was wave upon wave
and so I did, wrapped around myself with folk rock in my ear
until weeks became weeks upon weeks
and time lost track of me, little pebble in seabed
it does not matter, in the end, which version of childhood I hold true
my grandmother died, taking with her all my definitions of mirth
I was no longer a child by then
but always found it cruel that I couldn’t pretend anymore
nonetheless
A. Martine is an Assistant Editor at Reckoning Press and a Managing Editor/Producer of The Nasiona. Her collection AT SEA was shortlisted for the 2019 Kingdoms in the Wild Poetry Prize. Some words found/forthcoming in Berfrois, The Rumpus, Gone Lawn, Rogue Agent, Boston Accent Lit, Anti-Heroin Chic.
Other Works
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by Travis Madden
... An old woman in a shawl told him that for generations they used to only hear stories of it, only ever saw its smoke in the distance ...
Swamp Graveyard
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... If it weren’t for the slithering cottonmouth, / there’d be no movement here at all ...