for Myrna, who told me the story
Dorcas! If is suck you suck your thumb
one more time I going wash it
in Dead-water from Auntie coffin,
you hear?! Dorcas scared too bad,
but when Mammy gone away, Denzil—
swagger-saga boy—go and dip him hand
in the freezing melt ’round Auntie’s
ice-casket, laid out in the parlour,
and wave it round and round, chasing
the little ones, threatening to tickle them
with his Dead-water fingers. Not to be
outdone, Malachi, feeling mannish,
scoops a fistful of Dead-water and drinks
it down in one gulp! Relishing the cries
of horror and terror and distress….
“See me! I not ’fraid for no Duppy!”
But suddenly fearful and desperately
hoping the old tales are “pure foolishness”….