the scene started with an anthem the scene started with a warm summer room and torsos of desk wood home to the worn names of fidgeting girls who watch boys and boys who with a silk insult drop elbows in class mid-song

            some girls mime word for word while dem teachers curl pretty as de lip of a gun when that sound come on sis together they aspired to burn our schools down with dey mighty foreign tune pushin tru 

            god save the something some ting god save this country together we are the country it’s in our throats but sis I never sang it much I was just a body of mum’s hail mary’s at the time yet you were seventeen trading island for island 

            I know I wasn’t born but was still singing with you at the dock sis you hung from a rosary our nation bird arung yuh neck tight so tight we sang mum’s rhyme that loud it made us cry god save 

            the sinking the ship the captain god save the servant the kitchen the floor the orchestra of bones the truck loads of adolescents who find life cropped at the heart its dimensions swinging the foot of the boat her hum hearing us fade