poetic interlude #4- gorée

I place myself flush against the wall, feel the cold breath of the stone as I try to ground myself. I can feel the indentations in the wall, the rough edges from wear and tear. Fingernails scratching along the wall. My vision sways. The waves are pushing and pulling the walls around me. I’m going to pass out, I think. But I don’t. I just focus on the way a single tear falls down my cheek, in slow tracks. Then another wave comes.

There is not a big difference between tears and salt water.

The guide speaks about the women, the children who were held here. And I hold them — I do. I wrap my arms around them, their records and their voices. I write a thousand memoirs.

The sun feels too bright.

I take the weight of my body, the ancestors who cling to my legs like a child. Each one wrapped around me. I hold them too, but they slip through my fingers in droplets.

The tourists snap pictures, smiling in the door as if it is the parthenon. As if there are not shadows crawling along the doorframe. I wonder if the shadows will show themselves in the camera flash, a blur of black along the edge of the image — vignette.

Someone tells me that I have dust from the walls coating my hair. It goes down my back too. I decide to take a piece of them with me.

I cross the threshold. I imagine jumping, being tossed, slapping against the rocks. Before we came, people immersed themselves in the water at the shore. I knew better. I learned about the fish in the water. A barracuda speared along the coast. The boat leaves the dock, carrying me across the sea.