VII - The Indies

Deep inside the bosom of the Indies, I am like a dove high 
above the frontlines of the death of this world: 

Europe’s forests burn hot like the bellies of starving children,
the bombs of forgotten wars skid across the Middle East 
like pebbles over a river’s surface; Traoré summons armies 
of ancestors for this now centuries-old wrestle against ideas - 
so much of this world sits in the four corners of my phone. 

I know so much of this world,
like how I know the tangy scent of oncoming rain 
in mango-ripened July, that the yellowest cuts 
of breadfruit saddled with the reddest avocados, 
topped with the oiliest saltfish and downed 
with iced citrus, cannot save my mind from the 
knowledge of our world’s marching death.