poems.pdf

Poems by Dorothea Smartt
London, UK
SAMBO’S GRAVE, SUNDERLAND POINT
Is there a boy watching freshwater
and salt mix at Lune estuary?
There’s no proof the remains of any
African are there - a no-name Sambo.
Two days off an unknown ship
and dead. Put out on Sunderland Point
as his Captain met with wife and child?
This boy in catatonic shock,
at the sharp white cold, the earth’s stillness.
The quayside busy with schooners
that kept bringing more. A used Cabinboy,
on a ship’s ten month return voyage
that brought him to no-where, to no-one.
Waste. Buried in a western hollow.
Drawing the curious and shamed.
A plaque, but no body, at that place:
A shrine to undigested memories.
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