Melissa McKenzie

I never know I have music in my waist.
All the stretch it stretch 
from carrying baby after baby
I never know my waist have it own music.
Lyrics after lyrics
From the selector 
and this man.
Nothing but sweet sweet lyrics.
And because is long long time 
since I hear words 
well lace up with sugar
I play the kind a music
he want to hear.
I play it loud loud until
I forget the trailer load of promises 
from deadbeat after deadbeat
year after year
and only think bout the sweet sweet music
I have in my waist
for his sweet sweet lyrics.

Melissa McKenzie has been a teacher of English Language and Literature for the past eighteen years at the Old Harbour High School and currently serves as the Head of the Department of English. She is an avid reader and believes the act of weaving words into poems and stories is an act of bravery, one which she has challenged herself to perform more and more as she gets older. Several of her stories have been published in the Daily Gleaner and, quite recently, two of her poems have been accepted for publication, one in the anthology, ‘Miss Lou 100 Voices’ honouring Mrs. Louise Bennett-Coverly and the other “Stoplight Blues” by The Caribbean Writer. She is currently writing her first book.