‘Between these white breasts that my wandering hands fondle, white civilization and worthiness become mine.’—Frantz Fanon 




Tidal sway unsettles brackish water.

An asp unwinds from mangrove roots, to ask

the moonglade if evening star’s her daughter.

In love with a jewel, he dons a white mask.
His black flesh unfurls to bask in pale light.

Birdsong’s mistaken for the star’s ballad.

His scales are silver coins, his bones are white.

He sheds his darkness for something pallid.
A cloud covers the moon, and night is black.

The saline mirror turns him into mud.

The bird that caws, is perched upon his back,

and when he strikes, he spills her salt and blood.
Foul tides. The moon is veiled by brindle clouds—

dappled light wraps the dead in dappled shrouds.



 F. Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, (New York: Grove Press, 1952), 45. ↩