You know the dead are never dead / because I saw my
mum’s mum / walking down Lewisham High Street / she
was wearing purple / she’s always wearing purple / tak-
ing bites out of unripe mangoes / replacing them with the
other fruit / either she was invisible to the market ven-
dor / or unimaginable / the same thing really / our dead
couldn’t stay dead even if they wanted to / what we call a
legacy / her voice / when she spoke / sounded tinny with
a hair-raising intimacy // we met last in a Toronto suburb
/ I remember / nothing about her / except pearls, deep
violet dress / full wig of violent / shine curls / her home
smelled like clean magic / fans running in every room /
but she wouldn’t open the windows / afraid we’d let the
dead back / in / as if they hadn’t made it through cus-
toms in our suitcases / her figure wavered / a telephone
line with a fault / her death too was technical / speaking
nothing of the bloated cancers / marbled purple calves /
decaying waterlogged feet / an email / with her name in
the subject line // just the Barbadian man from Waltham-
stow recognised iron in the air / her smell / like an an-
imal wound / he looked up, put a mango in a wrinkled
blue bag / his smile was not without empathy // for free
/ he said / there’s no way to bury these things / earth will
only spit it back out / he must’ve known / he said eat /
in the park / it’s a day / neither fine nor good / just a day