Orange skies
painted with purple
streaks of oregano and
Grammy didn’t tell us
Mommy and Auntie got
different Daddys and
one is chocolate and
one is vanilla
but maybe she wore
Red Door and he
knocked and she
opened and let the
smell of peas ‘n rice
permeate through the
room where the
Liberian elder lives
down the hall from the
Creole damsel in distress
who might practice
Obeah cause Frankincense
and Myrrh fogs underneath
her door and gets us all
high.
•••
Annischa Bettina Cook studies English at the University of Iowa, where she transferred from the College of The Bahamas.
tongues of the ocean 