The Words

The words Like mother’s milk drip into my mind’s mouth to comfort, to nurture.

At first they are simple–even tasteless with a sweet fattiness made for me.

Returning each time blow after blow to where it all started.

Underneath the warm flow Of words, the world is new again.

***

Marie Ketsia Theodore-Pharel was born in Port-au-Prince Haiti, and currently lives in Homestead, Florida with her children and husband. She earned a bachelor’s from Tufts University and a master’s in English from UMass Boston.  Her most recent publications include “Kako Blood” in The Caribbean Writer, 2011; “Mercy at the Gate” in the acclaimed anthology Haiti Noir, edited by Edwidge Danticat in 2011; “Haiti: a Cigarette Burning at both Ends” published in Butterfly Ways: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, edited by Edwidge Danticat.  Her children’s books include Beauty Walks in Nature (2010), Songs from a Tower (2009), Keeper of the Sky (2007), One More Daughter, America (2006), Daughter of the House (2005), A Fish Called Tanga (2003), I’ll Fly Away (1999).  Her short stories published in magazines include “The Mango Tree” in Compost Magazine (1994); “Light Chocolate Child” in Onyx (1995), and “Soup Joumou: Diary of a Mad Woman,” in African Home front Magazine (1996).