Tall brown & gaunt each day at 6
he would enter the Trou Rouge gap
stride with purpose to the pastel pink house
with a bar downstairs say “good evening”
hoist himself up on one of Ma’ Charles’ bar stools
& call for a rum with 3 cubes of ice.
He would sip, stirring his drink with a
disinterested finger now & then &
engage in small talk with the 2 or 3
regulars on and off his stilts of legs
crossed as if reflecting a mind cross-
wired, befuddled within itself.
Between shards of small talk wry smile sometimes
he wandered off the edge in reverie
staring into the melting cubes refracting
the going-down sun riffled
through mango leaves & over the roof
of the old Caille Haute across the road.
He did this even on Sundays &
you wondered whether this teacher-turned-bookkeeper
had a home with warmth & laughter & yes
halé-casé chikann & mending hugs
& when Ma’ Charles could no longer tend the bar
he retreated to “the Square” in town.
Alone now starved of drink drink & the soft
dimpled smile of Joanna behind the bar
the animated banter of erstwhile friends
no books to do to earn the money
for that drink, the diurnal baptism
In which he sought redemption I thought.
He passed I heard wife and children somewhere
In the diaspora his indiscretions
perhaps not too egregious but
of course they were never mentioned & who
could speak ill of a most peculiar man
obituaries terse no life in photos?