Ma Ramon

Ma Ramon would fall upon the floor

feigning death at her children’s no’s

when they were too grown to force the bending

M’ pa palé anglé, she’d say, no eenglees

to tax collectors and those too dark to fall

within her notice. She a grand lady

of Abercrombie Street now the capital

was under the Queen and not the rusted

Republique. She did not

believe in London, the pappy show

that was the civil service, good jobs

for brown faces behind a desk.

She believed in land. Her own mystical origins

lay en la France, in red-haired green-eyed

aristocrats escaping guillotines and egalité

for seven mountains they would call their own

and though she had to marry black for money

she never forgot she was person of qualité.

She kept her parchment mother in lace and linen

photographed herself with all her siblings

maintained a piano in the parlor

for butter-skinned suitors with Creole tongues

to swirl the Castellan with dervish daughters

petticoats twining with worsted knickers.

Eh ben, Lucretia! Allé, Ena!  Oú ça, John?

Vini, Vivi!  Dansé, dansé!  Li beau, nuh?

Mes bel enfants, my beautiful cream children.