FINAL DESTINATION

Courtney Conrad

I remember learning how to write my name

while crossing the Atlantic on my mother’s passport.

The British accent rooting itself without a naturalisation certificate.

I am one year shy of retirement when the six o’clock news notifies me 

of the Home Office’s shredder feeding on my landing card. 

Two weeks later, thick envelopes make my letterbox retch—

eviction notices, NHS bills, and deportation warnings.

At work, my Line Manager leads two officers toward me,

one scoffs ‘illegal’ like it’s my first name. 

The other announces you are no longer allowed 

to work and live in this country. “Mi wuk yah thirty years. 

Pay mi taxes. Not even a bokkle of wata mi tief.” 

This is the first time my colleagues hear me

speak Patois. Outside the office, breathless

my body lowers like a flag.

 

Paperwork muffles my family’s wails.

The state calls me cargo and loads me onto a plane. 

Within hours, I arrive in Jamaica, soil hungry. 

The cemetery requires no papers for my residency.

Courtney Conrad is an emerging Jamaican poet based in England. Her poems have appeared in Magma Poetry, Poetry Wales, The White Review, Stand Magazine, The Poetry Review, Bath Magg, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Anthropocene Poetry Journal and The Adriatic Magazine. Her work has been anthologised by Anamot Press, Bridport Prize, Re.creation, Peekash Press, Bad Betty Press and Flipped Eye Press. She is an Eric Gregory Award winner and a Bridport Prize Young Writers Award recipient. She was shortlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize, Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, Mslexia’s Women’s Poetry Prize, Aesthetica Creative Writing Award’s Poetry Prize and the Poetry Wales Pamphlet competition. She was longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, Rebecca Swift Women Poets’ Prize and The Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition. She is an alumna of The London Library Emerging Writers Programme, Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, Barbican Young Poets, Obsidian Foundation Retreat, Griots Well Collective and Roundhouse Poetry Collective. She has a BA in Social Policy, an MA in Creative Writing and a MA in Public Relations and Society.