‘Where do you come from?’
‘I'm from Glasgow.’
‘Glasgow?’
‘Uh huh. Glasgow.’
The white face hesitates
the eyebrows raise
the mouth opens
then snaps shut
incredulous
yet too polite to say outright liar
she tries another manoeuvre
‘And you parents?’
‘Glasgow and Fife.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Oh?’
Snookered she wonders where she should go
from here –
‘Ah, but you're not pure’
‘Pure? Pure what.
‘Pure white? Ugh. What a plight
Pure? Sure I'm pure
I'm rare …’
‘Well, that's not exactly what I mean,
I mean … you're a mulatto, just look at ...'
‘Listen. My original father was Nigerian
to help with your confusion
But hold on right there
If you Dare mutter mulatto
hover around hybrid
hobble on half-caste
and intellectualise on the
'mixed race problem’
I have to tell you:
take your beady eyes offa my skin;
don't concern yourself with
the ‘dialectics of mixtures';
don't pull that strange blood crap
on me Great White Mother.
Say, I'm no mating of a
she-ass and a stallion
no half of this and half of that
to put it plainly purely
I am Black
My blood flows evenly, powerfully
and when they shout ‘Nigger’
and you shout ‘Shame’
ain't nobody debating my blackness.
You see that fine African nose of mine,
my lips, my hair, You see lady
I'm not mixed up about it.
So take your questions, your interest,
your patronage. Run along.
Just leave me.
I'm going to my Black sisters
to women who nourish each other
on belonging
There's a lot of us
Black women struggling to define
just who we are
where we belong
and if we know no home
we know one thing:
we are Black
we're at home with that.’
‘Well, that's all very well, but …’
‘I know it's very well.
No But. Good bye.’
Jackie Kay
This poem was published in The Adoption Papers 1991
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth54
