Homecoming

The house is peach, with white trim. The estate seller would have said mod­est, hum­ble, even while point­ing out the lions, drawn out with parched paper and extrav­a­gant sig­na­tures from Psalms, perched on columns with right paws raised, mouths agape, guard­ing the gates – as it were, which was also painted peach and white and moved manually.

The extra three thou­sand to give that final impres­sion of ease and some com­fort almost broke their backs.

They left off, con­tent with tomor­row and a long­stand­ing to-do-list.

The dream is ele­gant, rich-looking, and flavorful.

Some­one had the idea. Some­one paid through the gills. Some­one is still paying.

A lit­tle ways down the con­crete breaks, a plate set too close to the edge. The patch­work is faux Ori­en­tal, thrown over the side to dry and then for­got­ten to harsh rays and the plop-plop of squalls.

The con­crete becomes barbed wire fenc­ing bend­ing the first fin­gers of con­tact painfully. And yet the graft­ing of the two is some­how seam­less and accepted. Any argu­ment over land is killed by the iner­tia of a plot already fenced in. Sleep­ing dogs do not dream you see.

Peach­i­ness becomes a paw­paw and mango tree inter­twined; their roots, both barbed fenc­ing and bark alike is crowded by bit­ter dan­de­lions. The few not crushed by the incon­sis­tent but fear­some thread of feet and cars preen for their good fortune.

The yard is garage to a car lot. So much junk.

One piece in par­tic­u­lar has become a refuge for young men with no real agenda or license. There is a lone truck—built tough. In the dis­tance, hid­ing unformed plans for a gazebo, the van that was crushed until only the car­cass of a man­gled steel frame remains.

The mother wouldn’t drive for weeks after­ward. The husband’s bel­low­ing accu­sa­tions mak­ing more impact than the sedan com­ing out of nowhere.

Some­one is home. All the lights are on. The doors are open in def­er­ence to thieves that are blind. The man­ual gate, guarded by Psalmist lions is also open wide to admit many.

There is laugh­ter. There is music. There is noise. Always noise.

Tomor­row the bank will fore­close. Today it is the dream house and a homecoming.

Copy­right © Tynisha C. Leon 2010

ABOUT THE POET

Hi there, I’m Tynisha Leon, founder and Editor-in-Chief of DASHEEN mag­a­zine — the online des­ti­na­tion where cul­ture feeds imag­i­na­tion! I am a cul­tural war­rior first and fore­most; and for me that sim­ply means that I am a light bearer for all things intrin­si­cally cul­tural and Caribbean. If you seek to inno­vate, pro­mote and/or con­tribute to posi­tioning a Caribbean peo­ple and gen­er­a­tion most pos­i­tively then link me! Bless!

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