After ‘Lead You to the Shore’ by Steven Oliver (Fire Front: First Nations poetry and power today, UQP 2020)
I’m a dark horse
beating down the door somewhere childhood

escaped the streets etching three syllables of my name

beneath the old city of Bab Al-Yemen
a woman dressed in black found me shackled to the gates

it was my mother, chewing on her ruby passport
it’s time to leave. 
Goodbyes passed the Northern valleys

greeted the Southern blue waters unlocking

the fishermen’s Red Sea- 
colony crown reeked of death

buried in my foreign blood, martyrs will meet life

justice will dance on the heads of snakes
it turned cold quickly, over the Mediterranean.
This Yemeni girl sings British anthems

between her terrace walls, i lost a part of me. 
I forgot the taste of my mother’s milk

with her nipple gritted between my teeth. 
I taught my mother how to speak English

translating her hospital letters, cold is eating her bones. 
I skipped school to escape the scouse boys

lurking at bus stops who sing riddles

of camels, curry and Bin Laden headlines. 
A heartbreak worth to be torn

between two homes if my racist neighbour
daydreams our women in two-piece sets golden

headbands white polished toes

in the sand?                                         I deserve my honour. 
I lost a part of me in this dining room

learning to use a knife and fork
we don’t eat Sunday roast fish and chips

porky pie or go to the pubs
i like my fingers in my food, coffee before I sleep.  
I lost a part of me in this corner shop

gran-dad left selling Mokha

beans broken dreams broken biscuits for a half a penny. 
                                    Why here, why here?
This Yemeni girl sings British anthems British bombs

between her terrace walls she wears home 
and this dress fits perfectly.