I used to wonder whether it was you or me who, my past, fingered like a fetish worn round the neck, a talisman, an archaic guardian warding off...what?

Anxious fingers unconsiously seek the talisman and finger smooth, like a monkey pod trapped between the sea and sand, the monkey pod's natural characteristics forced in, hidden, 'til some beachcomber plucks it from the constant burnishing. And as I am not a monkey pod, the Caribbean's equivalent of rosaries and worrybeads, it's tediously wearing.

So I chose exile because

no matter how your tales begin, they always end the same: the "Four Points of Infamy Born". (Of course there are more, but one can only hold so much readily recallable in one's mind at one time.) Talismans, you see? Watch those fingers, unconsiously, fly in the telling, nesting in the hollow of your neck! (I suppose, were you a chicken, this would be your "wishbone".)

So I chose exile because

the weight crushed me, still crushes me. For you have never let me forget; there is the gift you bequethed me. Oh sure, occasionally you misplace memory and I, fleetingly, join in what I fancy's a shared moment...but no, words, ravenbeaked, intrude and pierce my folly because the moment really wasn't.

So I chose exile because

I accept what you said and what you say, unconsiously embodied in those anxious fingers flocking to your wishbone, that I've the mark of Cain. Leave me alone.

Copyright 2007 Rosalind Harbin

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