Saida Agostini
SUMMONING THE CANAIMA
at night I close my eyes and dream of what you will kill
the white crane, its neck barely torn within your teeth,
my master, his tongue splayed across that thin angry
sneer will you bring it to me? this unbearable gorgeous
prey, dragged bedside - bloodless and still in these
godless hours I lay wreathed in doubt
I could lose my soul for conjuring evil like
I have the right to call god and demand an
answer, I could lose my man for what I’ve
done strung up on some tree as penance for
bedding a witch his back flayed with a
whip in thrall with the secrets of his flesh I
could cause my child’s head to be dashed
out on the stones that stops the essequibo
from flooding this white man’s plantation
placed by black hands spilling black blood
I could lose my life for this, cause my
aunties to throw threadbare aprons over
their blessed heads and cry out for air
yet still, I want to open my ribs
take my ache mold it like clay
into death a sickle to drive
my enemies into something past
madness
give me a reason to leave them alone
arrest this sorrow inside me sealed
like I don’t know what’s nesting
inside
*the canaima is a mythological creature conjured by people to wreak revenge on those who have harmed them
COOK UP LAMENTS
begins to cry at the bar, tears falling onto the crisp linen suit
darla takes him home a blooming house all lace and pink
bougainvillea, serves curried lizard sweet and ripe on
flowered plates, she smiling and smiling as cook up drinks
more spiced rum, talks so about his granny and her knives,
the one room and bed they slept in at the corner of a big dark
water, how he could press against her when the cock crowed
and she smelled of tea and night. the men she loved who beat
her left the cupboards bare
cook up takes darla to her white bed, and eats her for
hours, holds her like he would his granny arms curled
round her form like a shield weeps as night falls for how
her heart will break when he leaves her, weeps for the
man he adores and could never touch like this, weeps for
the warm cradle of darren’s skin, knowing he would
bury a machete like love into his belly, if darren ever
dared to call out to him on a crowded street darla’s bed
nothing but a river for his ache
*this poem is part of a longer series detailing the exploits of cook up, a fictional character living in Guyana. cook up is also a traditional guyanese dish made of rice, pork, coconut milk and pigeon peas.
Saida Agostini is a queer Afro-Guyanese poet whose work explores the ways that Black folks harness mythology to enter the fantastic. Saida’s poetry can be found in Barrelhouse Magazine, the Black Ladies Brunch Collective's anthology, Not Without Our Laughter, and other publications. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow, Saida has been awarded honors and support for her work by the Watering Hole and Blue Mountain Center, as well as a 2018 Rubys Grant funding travel to Guyana to support the completion of her first manuscript. Her first collection of poems, just let the dead in, was a finalist for the Center of African American Poetry & Poetics’ 2020 Book Prize, as well as the New Issues Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, STUNT: a mythical reimagining of the life of Nellie Jackson, madam of Natchez, will be released by Neon Hemlock Press in Fall 2020.