I like to stay up
and listen
when big people talking
jumbie stories

I does feel
so tingly and excited
inside me

But when my mother say
“Girl, time for bed”

The living room remembers Gran dancing to Count Bessie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts fighting on Christmas Day.
The hall is worried about the loose banister.

In the beginning was the word
and the word is ours:

the names of places,
the names of flowers,
the name of names,
words are ours.