For Caribbean Girls who Have Considered Assimilation (When that Accent gets too Thick)

This poem
is for
Caribbean Girls
who have Considered
Assimilation

No matter where you go
It never gets more
beautful
than the hills
that surround
your concrete-
infested valley.

No matter where
you go,
no Force is
stronger than
your grandmother's
Hug.

Nothing will
ever intoxicate
you quite
like the
scent
of the lime-bud
tea
Forgotten
on the broken-down
washing machine.

For Caribbean
Girls who have
considered Assimilation:
There is only one home
no substitute
It is that house
you climbed
to get the yellow
cherries
to make
chutneys

It is the
radio
station
that blasts
music
from your
childhood
providing a
time vacuum
where nothing
has ever changed
except the softness
of your skin, the
droop of your smile
and that accent
which you have not
forgotten,
but which has,
from all accounts
forgotten
You.