English Hypocrisy

Abstract

My aunt ate snowballs,
fed her children
Yorkshire pudding and fish’ n chips,
cursed Jamaica for its hard life
while all the time
I here enjoying my Jamaican life,
waxy yellow yam,
creamy cow’s milk,
Granny’s cornmeal pone
hell a top
hell a bottom
an hallelujah in de miggle;
all the time
my aunt she cursing
hell all over Jamaica
from top to bottom,
she not thinking
hell a England for
the colour of silence
sound, feeling
memory
takes my gaze
beyond the abyss, to outer spaces
where my grandmother’s voice, still firm
reassures me I am alive
re-centres my mind
on her love
for my skin
my brother’s nose
my sister’s lips
logwood honey
homemade Easter buns
the colour of tar
guava jam
new goatskin, smelling of semen
squirted at the first strike of the knife
sugar cane juice
dripping from my elbows

I speak to my grandmother
colours now burst
through the silence, collide
speak black beauty
black joy
black pride
black grandmother
speaking in tongues
speaking through silence
in multi-coloured sounds
hallelujah all over
hallelujah in de miggle
at the top
at the bottom
in my grandmother’s (un) English world.