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first
published in The Interpreter's House, 25, Feb 2004
Meet the Ancestor
Walking
home from work, I saw him,
poking
at brambles where the slip meets Raglan Road.
He
saw me too, although his back was turned.
My
lightweight sound and smell carried no danger.
As
I came up, he swivelled back to front,
upright,
naked. His manhood dropped into its thick-grown covert,
armpit
plumes drifted across his chest, hair over hair,
his
small bright eyes peered from beneath their ledge,
his
huge scent swamped us both.
I
tried to smile, nothing with showing teeth.
His
eye-glint shifted, then his brown lips moved
into
a scant reflection, his curving wrist approached
laid
a brief finger on my inner thigh, withdrew at once.
Turning,
he pulled a fruit, held it up and my hand took it,
my
body knowing better what to do than I did.
I
put it in my mouth. He watched.
Suddenly,
a great sigh heaved away from him.
His
half-thoughts jostled and shoved at me,
urgently
fronting nascent memory.
Strange
formations of clouds, a moon shaking in water,
the
tiger’s bloodied underbelly skimming his mouth.
My
ancestor bent over me, slid a soft leather hand behind my neck.
Carefully
fitting his nostrils under mine,
he
snorted gently up into my skull.
Sylvia Rowbottom
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