GORÉE ISLAND (for Kamau)

Memory mocked us.
Thrust a long lascivious tongue

through the chiselled slit
of a viewing window.

Beyond the mute stone wall
the lone passage from these vaults

made cargo out of men:
one body high

one body long
one body wide.

Still, its baleful ships
unmoored and flown,

the portal boasted only dancing light
and unblemished sea.

No voices murmuring ibo or asante.
Just the creaking timber dock

bleached to bone by sun and salt
concealing all complicity.