Weekly Poem: ‘Storm’

By Kwame Dawes

Kingston settles on your skin,
the grit of wood-fire and exhaust
on your body; you know sin,
the pleasure of untrammeled lust.

Kingston is green in November,
so much rain; the water creeps
to the surface. I remember
the taste of june plum seeds.

Most of my friends are dying—
the thing is they know it,
and the others are busy nursing
the dying: God’s cruel edits.

So many saints frighten me
and I grow silent, disease
has a name: HIV/AIDS.
We are caught up in a breeze

that grows to a growl
crossing the water, dragging
the belly of the sea—a howl
shattering the black evening.

I stand in the storm,
let its battering break me;
I know now every form
of death; no more mystery here.

The eye passes mutely;
and while the earth vomits
and shingles cartwheel
around me. I doubt it

all; the conspiracy of death.
I will live to see the wasting
of my flesh; my last breath
will be in a calm season.

They will know my sins,
every betrayal; those I killed,
those whose voices begin
whisper to me until

tears come, until I pray
to slip away like night,
a frail man limping
towards morning light.

Kwame Dawes is director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative and the University of South Carolina Arts Institute, where he also teaches as distinguished poet in residence. He also blogs for the Poetry Foundation and serves as programming director for the Calabash International Literary Festival, which takes place each May in Jamaica.

Recently, Dawes teamed up with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to create a multimedia Web site called ‘HOPE: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica.’ The interactive site pairs his poetry with music, essays and video from people living with the disease and their caretakers.