THE SYLLABUS IS THIS

Teacher, 

This letter is to ask if you

remember brown me, 

fat-pudding from the Middle East

you couldn’t swallow. 

What did you feed the white kids

every day? It’s been years,

are you dead yet? Were you ever alive?

I unstitched your name from my lips

but still that scar in my mouth

and your face,

the thread of your tartan,

red hair, beady green 

of your eyes.

You,

an avalanche, 

still.

Remember how 

you drew the line at me, 

lined up at the tuck shop

for fudge or snowballs?

The snacks my mother made

you snatched to give 

to ruddy kids with earwax.

Eat less, you said, you said it

to my face before a bunch 

of smug pink turnips,

a happy crop leaning right, 

right into the future.

Wouldn’t it be fun 

to starve your name to its bones

and throw you a name like Mrs 

Brown?

Remember Thinima

the puppet you made 

to parody Fatima-

a joke 

spread across class, 

all the fat in me 

you could not undo.

Perhaps that’s how you prune a

                                           وردة بلدي                                         

make her believe she’s a thorn 

in your side. 

I believed 

the syllabus was this.

Teacher, 

are you dead yet, and were you ever alive? 

  What time couldn’t swallow 

it spat out,  

                                                               East to West.                                 

The things we get away with-

a teacher, an idol

could outshine the morning 

with alabaster skin, 

could devour a heart 

hungering for

 انجليزي 

I am old enough to birth you.

Are you dead yet?

I am still brown.

Always, 

a pudding,  sun-dried 

to the white of my bones.