Every year we are forced to reinvent ourselves, growing shabbier.
Perhaps uncertainty comes from the shifty breath of Hurricanes,
their unlocked eyes revolving always counter-clockwise.
Watchful. Unmaking us.
•••
A Jamaican now resident in Canada, Olive Senior is the author of over a dozen books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction; her latest is the poetry book Shell. Her novel Dancing Lessons and a children’s picture book, Birthday Suit, will be published in 2011. Her short story collection Summer Lightning won the Commonwealth Writers Prize and her poetry book Over the Roofs of the World was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor-General’s Award for Literature. Her other books include Arrival of the Snake-Woman, Discerner of Hearts (fiction); Talking of Trees, Gardening in the Tropics (poetry); Working Miracles: Women’s Lives in the English Speaking Caribbean and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.
tongues of the ocean 