If Only
Sitting on a mountain of human skulls,
his clothes devoid of their little secrets, he removes
his face and admires the beautiful moon. If only!
He can hear the echo of monkey chants, nonstop.
He can hear his dusky face telling him how tired
she is of his white lies. Take me away, she wails,
from the fuss about colour; buy me a soft slice of
dirt near our own local Golgotha and bury me like you
would a seed and let me be a black flower.
Here, they attack your face but mutilate your heart.
What’s wrong if he carries his colour too loudly
on his forehead? It frightens this frontal confession?
Why put a hefty cross on his face at school?
If only he could tuck his face into
his dreadlocks so that the turn of his big lips doesn’t
reveal a lot about what he thinks. If only he could hide
the healthy twinkle in his brown eyes so that it
doesn’t reveal his pride of being black. If only!
If only his little ears could go deaf and stop
the endless laments of those scarred human skulls.
A shrill voice cuts through the cold air; he follows it
with hurried steps, back to the dilapidated shack where
his mother is lighting the evening lamp, confident he
will survive in the safety of his rugged mind,
the only place where they cannot put that hefty cross.
The Black Boy
He can’t breathe.
It’s in a respected school,
French system. The white boys,
models of manhood to be feared, the black boy,
an ape in a cage, smelling of filth not his.
Is he not man enough if he loves poetry?
They spit at his face, make monkey
sounds behind his back, hide his clothes in
the locker room, finger his black ass.
He just can’t breathe.
One day, they dumped him on the ground as you
would a black bin bag of foul-smelling garbage.
One of them put his foot on his butt, pinning
him like one would a black butterfly.
A group of white girls guffawed and a voice said,
“So, they’ve got you, man!”
These girls must have been preys too.
They must have laughed at each other.
Other students looked on like expensive China.
No need to worry for the bullies;
a wee collusion (like always!)
would save them. Had the victim been
the white of the wan moon,
the fleece of cold December,
the shroud of the lily over wild mud,
the milky page, not the black poem,
he would have been a drinking buddy.
Alas! He carries his father’s stubborn colour,
the pride of marooned slaves who
jumped off the cliff on the day they were free.
He carries a blackness of a continent
too vast to be contained,
too vast to be understood,
too vast to be ignored.
Please, just let him breathe.
Let him breathe.
“The two poems gave me the opportunity to explore a delicate subject. Here, in Mauritius, we are a melting pot. We are often advertised as very tolerant and welcoming. Yet, I believe these two poems speak of what outsiders do not see. “If Only” is about black being beautiful but also condemned. “The Black Boy” is based on a true story.”
Amit Parmessur is a poet and tutor from Mauritius. His writing has appeared namely in WINK, The Rye Whiskey Review, Night Garden Journal, Ann Arbor Review and Ethos Literary Journal. He will always be late or absent from your party.