Dad is black
Black as tar
And then some more
He’s not a slave
But who can tell for sure
Cause he’s black
Sometimes blacker
Than a moonless night
My father, he works for money
And some says he’s free
He wears a linen suit
But they still look at him
Like he has an osnaburg shirt
Hanging from his back
He lives now where
People are whiter
And say Black Lives Matter
To think this needed saying
He lives in a land foreign
To his manners and foreign to his ways
Where there are more people fair
Than people of color
But it is the colored ones
That somehow fill the streets
And the shops
And the roads
My father has no shackles
He is more free than
He was on his land
Where his brothers tied to each other
Lacerated laid
Cried and cursed
And bit their tongues for measure
Dad, darker than the pit
His maroon ancestors were shoved into
Maroon in color
Maroon because they chose freedom
To an ear
To a hand
And sometimes to life
My father gets a wage
And still he weeps
And counts his cents
In his scorched fingers
While his ancestors
Manacled, and creatively collared
Bestowed wealth for generations
On their headsman
And gave mum all the gold-plated
Jewelries he could buy
While the white wife of his boss
Adorned in gold
From his father’s country
Admires mum’s modest taste
For cheap ornaments
My dad, as black as a street without lighting
Wears a hat when he goes out
A hat with no distinction
Just a hat because of the sun
Or to show a pretense
Of success
Where in the lands of the white
He survives
And he does not wear the beret I bought him
Because this still does not fit his black head
My dad, black still,
Blacker than a dead end
He wears shoes
Not fetters
Nor does he go about barefoot
His feet are still branded
But now with names like Adidas and Skechers
Because of his bad black back
And he proudly walks the
Brick road built under
Whips by his grandfather
And carrying the name
Of the white whipper
Who sweated his ass
Beating a pulp out of the lazy
Brown bastards
My dad lives in a country
Where there is equality
They say
And something similar to fraternity
Because it comes with an asterisk
*only among same race, or status
Can be read with a glass that magnifies
A thinly erased ostracism
My dad puts his feet on an ottoman
And watches Netflix
The People v. O. J. Simpson
He roots for O. J
Because as the jury
He is a biased black
Because the black jury did not
Could not
Make a logical decision
The blacks they think with their hearts
The blacks, they wanted to settle the score
And though the gloves did not fit
And they were not convinced
Beyond reasonable doubt
They had to condemn the black to be fair
Because he murdered the white woman
And he is guilty
Because as the other only white woman
Whitesplained in the black bar
To all the other blacks
In their black language
Can’t you see he is guilty
Because I am usually right
Because blacks don’t watch Seinfeld
And don’t go to the same shops as us
They are mentally segregated the blacks
My dad is black too
And he watches Seinfeld
My father he buys his brown bread
In the same shop for 60 years
And “money first” they say to him
For 60 years
And for 60 years, they look at him snidely
When his brown hand drops a note
In the tip jar
Cause he is playing above his status
Cause my dad is black
As the skin of the river
In a starless night
And he is acting white
My father is black,
As black as a craven raven
With clipped wings
Scavenging on scraps
Thrown to him with pompous magnanimity
A handful of millet from the left palm
And few eggs taken with the right hand
My dark father
As dark as a day with an eclipse
Cannot end his days
In the sun of his birth country
Because the white needs a home everywhere
One in the metropolis
And one near the seaside
And the blacks and natives
Can continue tradition
By cleaning their houses
And tending their gardens
On the land
Where black forefathers stumbled and dripped blood
The white children now build their palaces
And pay for years of servitude
With their white smiles
Doesn’t History repeat itself?
My father’s skin is covered
In black mold
Because he does not have a place
Under the sun he was born
His beaches now covered with deckchairs
And white people
Who sees no sarcasm
In wanting a bronzéed skin
While my father
Dies a vassal in the cold
Winter land of thieves and usurpers
Dad is black
As black as cocoa
Not dark coffee
Or roasted coffee
Or coffee with cream
How much cream?
He is not latte or cappuccino
He does not froth
Or foam
He is just black
As black as the mosquito
Seething in white milk
My father is negro black
There I have said it
Doctoral student in comparative literature at the University of Clermont Auvergne, Quraishiyah Durbarry has so far ventured into several genres, including poetry, novel, and drama. A bilingual author, Quraishiyah writes in both English and French. She was Co-Laureate and Laureate of the Writing Prize for the Passe Portes Festival of the European Union in 2015 and 2016 respectively.
