Cover Image: Lucy Jane, Martinique 2022
Image courtesy of the poet

Sequentia 1:3 of Dr. Roseline Armange's three-part poem called "Navigating the Binaries" received a warm response last week!  It is part of a collection of poetry entitled Queering My Caribbeanness, an autobiographical body of art that explores Black queerness in the French Caribbean. Dr. Armange (aka Lucy Jane) describes it as "embodying love and light as authentic truth" and considers it a "consecrated act of social change." Find Sequentia 2 below.

Navigating the Binaries: Sequentia 2:3

Zami

A paradox in LGBT minor dancing on Caribbean folks

An invisible space of gender-gentrification

A space for what some of them have felt of in our beingness: A Paria

Shhht… Mi Zami ka montré! (Look, Zami are coming out!)

Couri caché (Run and hide)

Maladi a vice ka kouri tout Koté (a disease of vice that is spreading everywhere)

Shhht… Mi Zami ka montré! (Look, Zami are coming out!)

Plèn lin (During the full moon)

Pa kité kow touché (Don't let yourself be touched by them)

Zami

Her body

Her body bonded to my body

My body bonded by her swing

Her hips in my hips

Her tongue in my tongue

Her voice in my voice

Smelling her body into my fingers

Letting her smile envelope me

Her chest melting into my chest

One Love

Zami

Her tongue lasciviously enrobing my body with her sweet fragrance

And a scream of Awe!

A Yawhé of bénédiksion (A Godly praise)

A Yawhé of blessed wombs and blessed tongues

A Yawhé of Love ek Kompassion (with compassion)

In Awe with the sweet melody of her body

The sweet fragrance of her lips on my lips

Covering the surface of my paysage (of my landscape)

Zami

Shhhht…. Zami pa ka montré! (Zami does not come out!)

Zami pa ka couri grand jou (Zami does not run and show her/themself in daylight)

Pou kimbé wont douvan la fanmi (to be ashamed in front of the family)

Pou kimbé wont douvan la patri (to be ashamed in front of your native land)

Zami pa ka palé (Zami does not speak too much)

Zami ka censuré (Zami practices self-censorship)

Zami ka kaché  (Zami hides)

Ka maché en ba pied mango  (Zami walks under the shade of the Mango trees)

Ka kaché dey roch larivè (Hides behind river rocks).

Ka serré adan foss mangrove (Hides in the pits of the mangrove)

Ka soti grand jou pou serré adan obscurité  (Goes out only in daylight to hide in darkness)

Kon manikou ka chèché limiè dé zè di matin (like an opossum looking for light at two o'clock in the morning).

Zami

Zami pa ka palé! (Zami does not speak)

Zami ka pé! (Zami shuts her/their mouth)

Zami pa ni voix! (Zami has no voice)

Zami pa ni lwa! (Zami has no birthright)

Zami pa ka di! (Zami does not speak)

Zami ka maché douvan kon soukougnan douvan jou (Zami walk as Shapeshifters afore-day ).

Zami - Ka kouri kaché avant jou tombé (Zami is running to hide before the day breaks)

Zami pa ka rété (Zami does not stay)

Zami pa ka montré (Zami do not show her/themself)

Zami

Zami

Zami….

24 juillet 2021 à 3:03 AM & 03 Juin 2022 5:54 PM

 “Sequence and end of a long psychological comptine (nursery rhyme) - redemptive suffering - souffrance rédemptrice - redemptive song - chant rédempteur - redemptive love - amour rédempteur.”

 ~ Lucy Jane

Lucy Jane, Martinique 2022
Image courtesy of the poet