from Small Husband
Roitelet
Small husband, I have been longing for you,
parched and hugging my tinder heart.
This afternoon too tranced and hot,
dusk too cautious and hot and silent,
night reluctant, each hot hour
holding its breath, what is it waiting to hear?
Small husband, you hide among the ants,
you wait among the thorns, your eyes green as the setting sun,
a heartbeat hunting a red stone under the leaves,
electroplectic fidget.
Small husband, is this where you will drink?
Small husband, I too sleep alone,
tied to myself, limb to limb to limb,
a hitch of grass and hair and string,
weighed in the earth of my bed, cold and red.
Small husband, I too never sleep
in the loud night, the night like a bed of stone,
each star like a pebble flung to glass.
Small husband, you watch at dawn,
you call like a necklace of cold water in the rocks,
raincloud in your throat, a song like drowning,
breath battling the dark drag of desire,
a song of names that cannot be pronounced or repeated.
Small husband, I want to follow you
up the scarlet ladder of your throat,
the thread you snag from leaf to leaf
with knots to show I cannot follow on,
a shivering string that snags too in my wrist.
My little king,
I dream you crouch in my thighs and watch through my eyes
the failed flight of my hands,
you creep in my shirt and your claws clutch tight in my lungs
so I breathe in winces, like a bird.
Small as you are,
small husband,
is there room in your breast for me,
a sprout of green,
for a long mystery, a great fire,
an arrow, an echo,
a story,
a solstice,
tomorrow.
Regulus
Little bird of a lion’s eye.
Granite and heart and sun.
Rainstorm mane like lightning round your shoulders.
Heart of three hearts, hunger of three hungers.
Three white seeds in the wormwood bud of your tongue.
They should have known by your velocity,
twenty thousand miles an hour aiming,
hurtle like a question’s arc,
longing to be a circle.
Little king, I am nervous as newborn leaves,
the clouded absinthe of my eyes,
my neck clean for the sickle of your tongue.
Small Husband
My Little King and His Armies
My little king,
and all his armies when they rose,
the thousand eyes, the thousand wings,
one heart too great for me.
Night’s armada hunts to west,
animals and ships, ten thousand lights,
reel to his cry, parade to his permanent eye.
Burn as I do, I cannot watch forever,
small husband, flesh as mine is not sublime
or permanent, ransom to your height,
temper to the furnace of your too-endless night,
tempted and sold and too slowly cold.
Rust and a hand’swidth of earth.
Small husband, I am eager to be patient.
Can there be enough of me to wait.
Now I am the impossible waker.
Wordless as a Surgeon
Wordless as a surgeon, small husband,
you are too hard on me.
I mean you are not hard enough.
Small husband, I am too intact,
every bone too neatly sewn
to every bone.
I have not known your flinch.
These pebbles I swallow are too small,
my lusts are too small,
my lungs are too pretty, purple and rose,
small husband, come with angry teeth,
I am nothing that cannot (or if I cannot) be torn.
Famous for My Hunger
Small husband, I will be yeast and seed
if you will be strange in your appetite.
Small as I am of living, of longing,
small as I am of what I ask, paper flowers & delicate paper fronds,
my prayers too small, my pride too small,
the hairspring of my wrist & my paper heart too small,
small husband, will you ask too much of me,
come like too much asked.
Lord, if nothing else do not explain.
Lord, I will ask for nothing else.
Someday I may be famous for my hunger.
Your Alias, Small Husband
Your alias, small husband,
the password of your name,
key to the melting of lakes, the opening of gates,
your name like the crack of metal, St. Somewhere’s fire,
St. Someone’s dance, a shiver quicker than silver,
my quicks and my quirks and my nerves hotter than silver.
Your electric names.
Astronomies and theorems and slangs.
Graces and mercies.
Arums and Bethlehem-stars.
Volcanoes and lightning.
The invention of glass.
Your name like glass in my mouth, little king,
silver and glass.
Your name like the whole world inside my mouth.
I never speak. I never ask.
Nicholas Laughlin is the editor of The Caribbean Review of Books and a writer with a particular interest in Caribbean literature and art. His essays, reviews, and poems have been published in various journals and catalogues, and most are also available on his website.
He is also co-director of Alice Yard, a contemporary art space and network based in Port of Spain, and co-editor of the broadside literature and art journal Town. He was born and has always lived in Trinidad.