TRESHA LIONEL

What is a wave but a giving that rehearses its taking away.
Beckon and retreat
to repeat
until we call it nature

The sea gave us back our boy
teeth protruding from skin,
a roar lodged in the throat’s ridges
locs bleached and broken
against the boat’s pink insides

Offered back to us
a sacrifice we have learnt to accept
— One fisherman every now and then.

But this boat returns to us charred
delivered hastily by watery hands
to the waiting arms of Dennery fishermen
who cradle sorrow and injustice

Terrorism looks like a small, empty, burnt boat
tied to a coconut tree, unmoving

Tied to a community taught not to move
against the stronger and more violent winds,
the waves, bigger all around us
take widening handfuls of our shore and souls
taking more of us than it gives back.

Beckoning,                                                                         Retreating,

Beckoning,                                                                                              Retreating
while we knit more nets
teeth protruding from skin, smiling,
roar lodged in our throats, we wait our tur—

Tresha Lionel is a Saint Lucian writer, journalist, and community advocate whose work explores memory, identity, gender, and social change in the Caribbean. Her fiction and essays have been published in The Caribbean Writer, adda, nouvél and Longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. Beyond her writing, Lionel is the founder of Vieux Fort Strong, a community organization focused on literacy, youth development, and social transformation in Saint Lucia. Through her podcast, Go There with Tresha Lionel, and her broader body of work, she seeks to create space for difficult conversations about justice and belonging.