Driving Through Kingston

Ralph Thompson

Mini-buses
alias “Cisco Kid” and “Tiger”
bully their rights of passage through
barefoot handcart boys burning
callouses for brakes. Under
sagging power lines blue
with old man’s beard hedges
crushed in the embrace of love bush,
lips orange, keep on kissing
while grass like lightning
zigzags down the cracked unlevel sidewalks.

Bougainvilleas flame their murals
on flaking whitewashed walls
with such incendiary blooms
the air is singed with purple.
Random mango trees lounge lazily
in yards enclosed with fences
out of plumb, lurching like files
of drunken soldiers to the sea

Copyright © Ralph Thompson