Forever trapped in the dingy jowls of a history whose pages are full of blood stains and smudge – trapped by fate in the hold of a muck-spattered caravel, or was it a schooner? I forget which…. Bitter memories that continue to lace the water we drink, flavor the food on which we ravenously feed – trapped on the sullen margins of a history which would rather we salaamed our trappers and taskmasters for ceding us one rotten tooth on a cob – this deliberate crime of asbestos began at The-Gate-of- No-Return, where unremitting waves lapped our heels demanding solemn service from our guts and souls… a sheer matter of dollars and cents whose veritable cogs we are – no escape hatch, no-how, young woman; there is no escaping from oneself, just the stubborn will to overcome and live as proudly as any with claims to providential mirror-imagery… and so bump-bellied Sadie stepped up the threshold of history’s tempting tentacles, alas, only to have the bait switched and the winner suspended between dream and the hard facts of life – 11/19/10 By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.