On Dumb Souvenirs and the Taking Spirit

by Rita Mookerjee

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At security check, island-bound ladies gather. 
I recall that the closer I get to the equator, the more
I start to look like everyone else, the more the world
seems old and familiar. Lately, I’ve noticed how
New York dries my nose and leaves grey skin 
around my lips, my mouth shedding itself, my body
peeling away into America. When my gate

changes, I have to go outside. I absorb fine mist, 
already dreaming of the island, already a sponge. 
I think of American tourists who take saltbleached 
seashells from the islands, who tuck mini bottles of rum
into their carry-ons, little totems to rest on office
desks and Pottery Barn nightstands, who visit the craft 
park to buy black dolls dressed like schoolchildren
in paper bag brown uniforms. I think of those who
fly into Montego Bay to avoid seeing poor people
on the Kingston streets. I too will take. I carry the taking
spirit on my passport, on my visa. The scholar abroad;
how novel. I think of the president leering on the news,
blaming drugs on Jamaica, calling Haiti a shithole.
I want to wipe my America off. 

I am destined to take, this is certain, but I will myself
into something soft and pliant to the world around me
cosmic or not. I transform myself into a sponge: ready 
to give just as much as I take.

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Rita Mookerjee (she/her) the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Postdoctoral Fellow at DePaul University. Her poetry is featured in Juked, Hobart Pulp, New Orleans Review, the Offing, and the Baltimore Review. Follow her @RitaMookerjee