My Sister Asked Me

My sister asked me

what’s it like to have a black sister

when you are white?

She put me on that spot you cannot get down from

until you have wrestled the unspoken from the past and have it laid out

writhing under the lights

I blind tag another sister 

words fall like ashes because sometimes spontaneity just burns and experience melts behind a wall of shimmering air

We are at sea behind a fata morgana

colour is just light is easy to say 

if you don’t carry the weight

of a history of bigotry

Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed

she stokes her cheek and holds her soft mossy hair in the air

I’m really pretty black 

                                      but I’m disconnected 

I need you to tell me to make my narrative whole -

as though this could be a ready-made thing to pull from that shiny chest now the time is right

all beautifully bound and bejewelled – here it is – the true story that you were waiting for -

there is nothing to give her

only acknowledgement 

she is black

and I am white

and what a difference

that has made.