I longed for a chameleon life,

my brown rind most seemly for family gatherings,

peeled with the telling and retelling

of myths and collusions

from the old country,

for the gifting of clay pots and gold

from aunts who’d returned,

suitcases bulging with the foreign-familiar,
inscrutably sable like the mustard seeds

in my mother’s kitchen,

white for school,

for loitering underage in bars, near railways,

in packs selected by popularity,

milky as college captains

blessed with sameness and blue eyes,

as undeniably wasp-toned as Marsha Brady,
I bled for the melting pot,

watched red turn to rust,

humbly explained my origins at soirées,

wanting mostly to slip

the coat my ancestors bestowed

with its dark buttons stitched shut

and me, captive, perspiring

inside the Melbourne grey,
my cinnamon breast

in a lover’s grasp,

his fingers stretched like lily-manacles,

stark against my hide,

dragging me out of the east

into a decadent west

with all its comfort

and discomfort.