Hi Harlem #7
#7 Sisters Caribbean Cuisine
They are an allegory, these two elegant women,
chicory brown showing between the flaming red
of their origami turbans and long flowing dresses.
They move with a slow stateliness that yet owns
a required quickness for plucking a child from a river
or a flower from a stem. Unmistakably sisters,
they have a brother (or is he a husband?), succulent
as goat curry with collard greens and candied yam,
who is not always there. They manage without him.
Once, someone threw a rock through the window
and made off with the cash register. It was empty,
one sister told me as she swept up the fallen glass.
(One speaks English, the other, however, does not.)
The restaurant is on the rougher side of the park.
They are an allegory, these two elegant women,
chicory brown showing between the flaming red
of their origami turbans and long flowing dresses.
They move with a slow stateliness that yet owns
a required quickness for plucking a child from a river
or a flower from a stem. Unmistakably sisters,
they have a brother (or is he a husband?), succulent
as goat curry with collard greens and candied yam,
who is not always there. They manage without him.
Once, someone threw a rock through the window
and made off with the cash register. It was empty,
one sister told me as she swept up the fallen glass.
(One speaks English, the other, however, does not.)
The restaurant is on the rougher side of the park.
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