Lawrence:                                                                 
        
      Yesterday,  
      all my letters to you returned.  
      A heavy block  
      wrapped in twine.  

      A note from Blokeman  

      was pressed between them . 
      "He has left the hotel,  
      your brother now lives in Spanishtown."  

      Spanishtown.  

      Kingston is more beautiful.  
      Kingston is a modern city,  
      A port city,  
      through which, it seems,  
      all the world must come and go.  

      Today in Miami,  

      it is a Wednesday in October,  
      and in Kingston,  
      a Wednesday in October,  
      but in Spanishtown...  

      There is a narrow place,  

      your place,  
      where shoots of grass  
      are chasing the cracks  
      up and down the sidewalks  
      and dogs,  
      forgotten and nameless, 
      trot thinly in the streets,  
      And a black man  
      in a white shirt  
      leans against the wall of your house.  

      He no longer stares  

      as you come and go  
      But he should.  
      He should stare into the window where you sit.  
      He should see that your eyes are darker than his own,  
      He should know that your hands are as fine and delicate  
      as coral.  
      He should reach up on the tips of his toes  
      and kiss your brooding mouth.  

      The land that Kingston sits on  

      is wonderfully fertile  
      but perfectly dry.  
      The port city through which,it seems,  
      all the world must come and go.  
      It cannot conceive  
      the life it promises,  
      cannot sustain  
      its aspirations.  

      I left.  

        
      And you.. 
      You did not stay, 
      but you 
      did not leave. 
      You merely went further in. 
      Spanishtown. 
      beyond the Liguana plain, 
      in the Blue Mountains 
      where it is cold at night, 
      and the dogs trot thinly in the streets. 

      It is fine in Miami 

      on a Wednesday in October, 
      and we could love 
      in a large house 
      with many rooms. 


      -Shannon