Carnival.

Carnival

   On the soccer field
   in the vicious Caribbean sun
   the bright wooden stands lurch at one another
   like drunks painted the color of sea, sky
   and the pink-lipped conch.

   "Mama loves you" waves a flag.
   The boom box blasts "Jump Jump Jump baby,"
   the latest hit of the Burning Flames.
   Toddlers pop up and down to the beat and swirl
   while the toothless granny laughs.

   Young Mr. Cool, ripple-jointed
   double-hitches around the corner
   after the burnished beauty queen.
   Waves of sound and heat pump the maniacal air.
   The fly drowns in the beer.

   Come! Here come the floats! The Hilton,
   the Marriott and the Jones Hardware.
   "You get better screws at Jones Hardware,"
   silver sequins wink in the yellow air
   razzle dazzle hello there.

   Majorettes pumping white boas
   waving blue feather dusters, hello there,
   big black speakers booming tinny
   mumbo jumbo tinny booming.
   Here come the Gulf and Hess floats,
   the clumsy mammoths oil their way up the street.

   Out of nowhere strut six drummers
   beating giant drums like black craters,
   low and dark, slave drumming. The air throbs
   and darkens. A tiny monkey, their mascot,
   dressed in paper flames darts and spins
   between the skirts of the Hess oil float
   dancing the devil, thumbing his nose.

Noel Smith grew up in New York, where she now lives, but has lived in Antigua, which she visits regularly. Her work has been published in The Caribbean Writer, New Letters, Shenandoah, and West Branch, among others. Her collection of poetry, The Well Spring, came out in March 2008, published by MotesBooks. She has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize.