I am the resolution

I am the resolution of conflicts
between mothers and fathers of mothers and fathers
who could not look upon
this far continent of my conception,
but who, now, reside peacefully
in my blue-eyed African bones.

No longer within these skins
can the master’s fingers twitch upon his whip
to urge servitude from those unknown parents,
for now they are one
in pale, flared nostrils,
in long bones.

Just as the antelope smells in the lion its own fear
and the lion smells in the gazelle its own blood,
I smell my ancestors in this foreign air
and attend their music in dreams and wind.
Their fears I have come to ease
for I am, now, their resolution.

B.L.P. Simmons was born in St. Lucia, West Indies, studied design in London, lived mostly in California, and resides in Central America. She writes in English, Spanish, and translates Spanish to English. Her work has appeared in Bay Area Poets Coalition 14, American Poetry Journal (nominated for Pushcart Prize), Poui: Cave Hill Literary Annual (University of the West Indies, Barbados), Sand Hill Review, riverbabble 13, riverbabble 23, riverbabble 26, Cuts from the Barbershop, an anthology of Bay Area poets, and The Call: An Anthology of Women’s Writing (Dragonfly Press, 2009 and reprinted in 2010.) She was a featured reader at various N. California poetry gatherings (including one of Spanish poetry), and in Costa Rica and has written two chapbooks titled “My Body Forgot Snow,” and “En Otro Idioma”.