The Undertaker’s Daughter
for Marion Bethel

haunted I am, she is
or is she, about her dad
over how he went missing

wrote “The Undertaker’s Daughter”
about it

worked on it at UWI, Cavehill,
in a workshop, in summer, 1999
it appeared not long after, in Poui 2

don't know how ol' I was when
I heard on der news of her dad
going missing

of his plane going down
or lost, never found

went away to somewhere
among our family islands
and never returned

no body nor wrecked aircraft
ever located or recovered

remember wanting to hear
the end of the story
wanting it to conclude

like some tale Kafka wrote
I have all these years been suspended

like something you are unable
to rest down

no matter how tired your arms get
or whatever else or with which muscles
you were holding it up, keeping it up

but this for me
was but an event on the news
he but a member of the Bahamian family
this man lost though was her dad

is poetry what she uses all these years later
to work it out, to get a handle
on what she could not otherwise resolve

did this loss help her to find poetry
lead her to it

with her pen and mine
we dig for ghosts

we use pens to bury the dead
after digging their deep graves

how grave the many in Haiti, dead
an earthquake fallen on them
earth opening up and swallowing them

was her dad a victim
of the devil's triangle
full of water, waves
instead of flames, licking hot lips


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2010
2:41 a.m. 15.01.10