PANORAMA OF A COLOURED RACE
And time would curl in on us
make all roads beginnings
to an encounter.
So we’ll sing aubades
to being alive and unable
to live circumstance
unclasp the guilt
that circles us like sharks.
Everything too is coloured, we say:
starvation, dark brown
as lust in a man’s eyes
for a woman’s body, newly tanned.
Love, beige blue
as nostalgia when a country
tenders your skin for currency.
My hand reaching for a knife
in the dark is what colour again?
Names are coloured
just as bodies.
Nothing
is to be black.
Place your hands into the night
and it disappears.
—from Rattle #72, Summer 2021
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Iheoma Uzomba: “I am a Nigerian. I share lineages from the south and southeastern regions of my country. Writing, to me, is lifestyle. I feel so because writing is not restricted to just a sphere of life: it cuts across anything and everything. It is like telling you, the writer, ‘You are God right now, yes, create this piece and then breathe life into it.’ I find interesting the themes of psychological imbalance, precedence, sexuality, dilemma, and disillusionment.” (web)
