March/April 2022 / Poetry

Quasheba’s Lament

I taste my own salt blood / and remind myself I am still alive

- by Lorna Goodison Updated 9:13, Mar. 30, 2022 | Published 12:55, Mar. 29, 2022This article was published over a year ago. Some information may no longer be current.
Grey scale portrait of Lorna Goodison against a pink background.

I know how to abase, I know how
to abound. How to press my big toe
aground and bite my tongue.

I taste my own salt blood
and remind myself I am still alive
and there is hope while there is life.

I knot up my belongings in my bundle;
you send and say is not my time yet.
I loosen the knot and I wait.

I calculate the silver money I save up
in a shutpan I bury underground
till the day my day of freedom come.

And every day I bend down and draw
in the dirt, O Jesus, I draw a straight
line that lead to freedom come.

I draw my own house with a front door.
I forge my lock and key. I turn the key.
I lock me inside until such time as I leave.

Lorna Goodison
Poet Laureate of Jamaica from 2017 to 2020 and the winner of the 2019 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, Lorna Goodison lives in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia. Her new book is Mother Muse.

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