Autumn quickly broke
down to mud,
a low European country
Césaire warned
Antilleans of.
I barely spent time
with Lamming,
with Manley,
with W H Johnson’s
summer soliloquy
at an urban parlour
with Parboosingh.
Commuters ran
from one train
to connecting train,
and I was a walker
at work, note-taking
racial exploitation
as if it were a stage.
I knew I wouldn’t see
Rotterdam
and had an agenda
too short to loud talk,
to sing in diaspora, dying
for familiarity
on this conference trip.
In spite of my dreads
and attire, people approached.
They found
my forehead full
of mythical Finnish winters
and Black men trotting
in snow like fields
of cotton.