- A selection of poems
Ex-Patriots
Ex-Patriots
On our last morning we take coca-tea early
in Confiteria Elis
on the Avenue of the Sixteenth of July.
The thin air of a high altitude dawn
and the peeled light make the world seem new.
Ayamaras from Tiahuanaco
are arriving for the market on Avenue Bolivar.
An unsophisticated people,
whose ancestors were found by the Incas
living among ruins they could no longer explain.
They have bags full of chickens,
foetal llamas, squealing piglets,
simmering buckets of creamy grubs.
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Last night our sleep was disturbed again.
With the full moon’s rising
a drug plane came in low over the trees
to the south of Marsh Harbour.
There was the drone on and on of an unlit boat
somewhere between Salt Cay and the horizon.
Martin Edwards