Lisa Allen-Agostini

The pothole was an open sore on the scabbed road. Justin walked around it and hitched his book bag high on his shoulder so the trailing ends of the straps wouldn’t drag in the pool of mud and stain his crisply starched school shirt and pants. He had spent half an hour ironing his uniform that morning. He was careful, too, to step where his clean black suede Clarks would stay store-fresh, away from the orange-brown sludge left by rain on the roughly paved ground. It was 8:15 and he wouldn’t have time to clean the boots again before he got to school. The first bell had already gone, he knew. Lichelle was lagging; he gave her hand a little tug and she sped up behind him.

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Fabienne Sylvia Josaphat

Emmanuel was always faster than I was. In the distance, I saw his shadow zoom past the bushes and trees, hopping from one spot to the other. I ran as best I could, but my breathing grew shallow and my heart raced. My shirt was sticking to my back. I’d been chasing him for a mile already under the scorching afternoon sun and my feet were tired of moving so fast in flip flops. I had already lost two pairs that way, trying to keep up with Emmanuel, and this time, my mother had warned me.

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Hibiscus Opening at Day Break

I woke up today
soaking in her golden red light
for the first time, pulling myself
through memories that break skin

they melt like glass this time
sun showers across my collar bones
they unravel me, no longer
I remember & exhale stories, hard to pass on.

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The Handbill

From plantations across the Leeward Islands,
SLAVES described below, to be auctioned
by Wm. Bagley and Sons, Ltd.,
of Christiansted, St. Croix,
promptly at noon on October 12, 1772,
on the Commons Ground.
Shaded seats may be reserved.
All individuals may be sold separately.
Bagley and Sons are pleased to provide
white gloves for examining the chattels.

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Ghosts’ Lament

Their ghosts
walk the lawn.
They leave shadows.
Shadows slant in the setting sun,
as someone beats a
pan;
a skanking Marley jam.
The ancestors walk
in the shadow of these
fortified walls,
where women were
raped,
and blood mixed with the diesel
and gun oil spilling into
the sea.
The ancestors cry
at their legacy erased,
at another’s legacy embraced.

Joanne C. Hillhouse is the author of Oh Gad!—a novel scheduled for publication in 2012. A University of the West Indies graduate and international fellowship recipient to the Breadloaf Writers Conference at Middlebury College in Vermont, Hillhouse also participated in the Caribbean Fiction Writers Summer Institute at the University of Miami. There she began work on her first book, The Boy from Willow Bend, which is on the reading list for Antigua and Barbuda’s schools. For more, visit http://www.jhohadli.com.