after Aaron Samuels
Some people would deny that I’m Jamaican British.
Anglo nose. Hair straight. No way I can be Jamaican British.
They think I say I’m black when I say Jamaican British
but the English boys at school made me choose: Jamaican, British?
Half-caste, half mule, house slave — Jamaican British.
Light skin, straight male, privileged — Jamaican British.
Eat callaloo, plantain, jerk chicken — I’m Jamaican.
British don’t know how to serve our dishes; they enslaved us.
In school I fought a boy in the lunch hall — Jamaican.
At home, told Dad, I hate dem, all dem Jamaicans — I’m British.
He laughed, said, you cannot love sugar and hate your sweetness,
took me straight to Jamaica — passport: British.
Cousins in Kingston called me Jah-English,
proud to have someone in their family — British.
Plantation lineage, World War service, how do I serve Jamaican British?
When knowing how to war is Jamaican British.
Copyright © 2018 by Raymond Antrobus, The Perseverance, Penned in the Margins
