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      December 4, 2010Antilles. Lesser.Lynne Thompson

      When you’re a girl and your pop-pop tells you
      he was born in the lesser Antilles, you don’t ask
      questions. Truth is, you don’t really know what

       

      Antilles are; barely know lesser although you do
      know about comparisons. You have book smarts:
      have read the oeuvre of Dumas pére & Dumas fils;

       

      read about Alexander the Great (which suggests
      there must have been an Alexander the Less but
      you’ve never read anything about him and can

       

      imagine how embarrassed his kinfolk must be).
      Anyway, when pop-pop tells you about these lesser
      Antilles, these small islands, you worry they’re just

       

      magic dust & sure enough because when you look
      on a map, circa 1957, those islands aren’t even there
      which is humiliating because when you go to school

       

      where some little white girls are boasting of County
      Cork or about a seder their forefathers prepared in
      what’s now called Prague—easy to find on McNally’s—

       

      all you can say is: my people were born in the West
      Indies, Antilles (trying much too hard to sound exotic)
      but Mrs. Lordamore’s exacting, wants to know where

       

      in the Antilles while she goes on to tell the class how
      Cristóbal Colon (aka Columbus) landed there when he
      was looking for America; specifically, that he landed

       

      in the Bahamas and then she turns to you, asks are you
      saying your people come from the Bahamas? and you
      pucker your forehead the way you do when you want

       

      others to think you need time to remember but you’re
      already remembering your pop-pop looking glassy-eyed
      when he sermonized about the Antilles; about plantain

       

      and rum. But just now, Mrs. Lordamore’s still waiting;
      saying show us, show us on the map and now you can
      barely stand up and when you do, you walk very slowly

       

      to the map, point to the place you already know isn’t there
      and you pray and glory hallelujah!—prayers get answered!—
      the school bell rings and it’s the last day before Christmas

       

      vacation and you’re sure everyone, even Mrs. Lordamore,
      will forget the question by the time you all return, January
      next. And all of them do. But you don’t forget although

       

      it’s years before you see pop-pop’s St. Vincent (his lesser
      island) on a map. But by then, pop-pop doesn’t talk about
      sweet fruit anymore. It’s left to you to find anyone to tell.

      from #33 - Summer 2010

      Lynne Thompson

      “As with many poems, this one has its genesis in the hard truths of childhood. How to explain to a child that the country her parents come from is not on the map? What insidious message does that send to the psyche? One that can only be mediated (for this writer) in a poem!”