Night of Chappotin - Poem

African American Review, Fall, 2002

Night of Chappotin.

Myronn Harday


We ride into Habana Vieja.
The women brush off the dust
of limbless buildings. The men
are shirtless selling mangoes
out of wheelbarrows.

A friend's love of the city plays
on the radio  the forbidden drum
of his country alive in this one  their hands
  warm  callused  shaken for the first time.

It is a plaza behind a church where we gather.
The grandson of a slave smokes a cigar  his
grandfather taught him sound behind the canefield
  the Gulf filling with phantoms  their
percussion echoing above water.

We drink rum with mint leaves
as they play. My eyes are closed  the familial sound
wraps me in red and white ribbons  with the moon
over me tonight I dance  my feet caked with soil.

         Tonight I've found home.

Myronn Hardy is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Columbia University. His first collection of poems, Approaching the Center, was published by New Issues Press in 2001.