Coir

Then, the mattress was a pallet stuffed with coir
and after a rough quota of say six hundred nights
of good dreams like pumpkin and cho cho- (new life)
pretty water- (prosperity), excrement- (money), and say
114 bad dreams of wedding-(funeral), old house
missing teeth-(death), or cats-(enemy)
the coir would feel it had taken enough pressure
and would send out vengeful needles
to bore cruelly into the skin.

Rassy our mattress man was a "beardman" who bore
a resemblance to the monk Rasputin.
He favored garments in the color of dusk
and if his head was bent over and the light was sloping
toward evening, you could imagine him in a monk's cell,
telling beads against the next phase of his life
which would find him in control of a Tzarina.
He had one eye walled off to the public
but I could see through that curtain
the worship hidden there for my mother.

But of what use were such feelings?
He was content to receive a meal at noon from her hands
and tremble gratefully at the thought of her pointed fingers
peeling moon-white Lucea yams and seasoning meat
so that you smelled her hand;
that is, a benediction of spices would rise up
to cover you when you entered through her gates.
His movements are slow,
dark molasses is his infrequent speech.
He can sit still for what seems to a fidgety child
like 999 hours.

But something stirs his slow self into speeded up action
when Rassy whips the coir.

First he folds his handkerchief into half, three points,
a triangle, a mask. He ties it round the lower half of his face,
pulls down his cap to just above his eyes.
Then he runs his thumb and forefinger
along the thick wire of his whip.
The handle too is of wire but padded with cloth over and over.
Ready, he approaches the red unruly mass
spilled from its ripped open ticking case.
He approaches the small red mountain, muttering
some ancient incantation to protect him from fierce fiber.
His arm jerks back and flicks forward, he delivers the first
blow, the coir registers receival of whipping
by sending out a cloud of frightened red dust.
When Rassy whips the rebellious coir he whips
all his enemies, exorcizes life pain and causes rain
to fall down red from what he sends up to the heavens.

The woman who threw the acid that coagulated his eye
first rain of blows.
Then the colonial Government, the Governor and Queen Victoria
for sending that heartless facety letter commending
ex-slaves to "industry, thrift, and obedience"
when the people were just rightly asking for justice,
and land to live on and grow food.
The first man who had the idea to leave and go
to Africa and interfere with the people who were minding
their own business, a hard rain of blows.
For Mussolini and the Italian Army
on behalf of Haile Selassie, five straight minutes of blows.
To Babylon in general for generic evil, hunger, disease
bad minded people, Rassy rains blows.
He whips them all for a good part of the morning
red clouds about his head flying frightened vapor from his whip.
And when the coir has been beaten into submission
he walks away triumphant, sweating, removes the mask
and wipes his eyes, it comes away red but his blood
is running free.

He asks of my mother, a cool drink
of water which he sips with the air of a victorious warrior
before he settles at the machine to stitch
the big square of new striped ticking
into which he will imprison the chastened coir.