Trick a Duppy

If you wahn trick a duppy
and wahn walk on happy happy
in a moonshine – bright moonshine –
hear how and how things work out fine.

You see duppy. No whisper. No shout.
Make not the least sound from you mouth.
One after the other straight straight,
strike three matchsticks alight.
Drop one then two of the sticks ablaze
and before you walk a steady pace
flash dead last match like you drop it
when smart smart it slipped in you pocket
to have duppy haunted in a spell
and why so you cannot tell.

But duppy search search for third match stick
to vanish only when 6 a.m. come tick.

Copyright: Only One of Me (Macmillan, 2004), Copyright © James Berry 2004, used by permission of the author

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James Berry's poems take you back to the noises, sights and smells of his Jamaican childhood. James was born in 1924 in a small village ...

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