mouth

it has become     a reconciliation  

this return to the jaws of the river

       waters         that held                   my adolescent anger

    draw me   back in   with their tidal wave 

    on the opposite bank   the old colonial fort    remains

    captor of my ancestors      is now my witness

I stretch my eyes out         to the horizon

 searching             for the point where

river   

        pours   

     into sea

     away from the interior

I turn my back

to the concrete walls closing in 

but I cannot escape

     the white teeth   gnawing our hills

         if we drain this body   of all its    fluids   will we find

        the carcass of our grief at the river bed 

or does the sea swallow us 

           whole