Black History Month
I fasten my tie in the reflection and my mother
hollers what is her anthem now. The mirror breaks -
and with it, the adopted whiteness. The shards are an archipelago:
small, diverse, and they whisper a story. They whisper it
in creoles - the Queen’s English liberated their tongues.
One shard whispers: our religion demonised us (and it should).
We struck them like we struck our drums and broke air with
hosannas of freedom; war-like wails that break mirrors.
We sliced decisively like broken glass.
Another shard whispers: we adorned whiteness.
Rain that you can smell and winds with split personalities -
soil that swallowed blood and vomited culture- perennial summer-
our unforgiving greenery is considered worthless for bricked jungles
and Marcus Garvey dies twice!
We fought two mothers on either side of the pond.
One wears red, blue and green (they call it post-colonialism)-
with headbands that lend height and the colours are stubborn
like her hair; it is her crown and she broods Caribbean wisdom.
The other wears a stolen crown, sat precariously on usurped fortune.
We learn the blandness of her dress: stiff collars and ties and ascots.
But the first mother wins!
How the mirror broke! And the shards ooze blackness -
calypso, indomitable reggae, sacrilegious Dennery segment (as it must be).
An archipelago destroys itself and emerges black.
