TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Grace Nichols

Tea with Demerara Sugar

I’ve given up trying to give you up, Demerara (not that I’ve ever tried).

Friends admonish me gently as they sip their own unsweetened brew (ironically) tucking into cakes far beyond me and you. I say I’ve paid too high a price to give you up and that just a teaspoon of you is enough to brighten the tone of my tastebuds. I know your cost in tears, brown sugar, the bloody sweat behind each crystal grain – you whose shadow still haunts the sun, our riddling water stand-up water lay down – turning me inward to my Demerara days, your canetalk whispers fermenting the night air.

18