for my grandmother

​

She was like the man

on Likoma Island – gold-white sand

slicked by a dazzled lake; dhow-smudged;

huts shadowed by an Anglican

Cathedral, giant in the sun.

 

I met his family on a ferry

from the mainland of Malawi.

Invited to their home by curiosity:

not every day a black mzungu,

foreign heavy on her tongue.

 

He strode across a scrabbled yard; 

grabbed a meagre chicken, bagpiped

underneath his arm. Wings

flapped dust out of a fraying shirt.

All the time, he smiled, spoke

 

another language. I spoke English.

Never knew my first, or the place in Africa

where it was beaten, lost,

my family forced to deepest Surrey,

south east of Jamaica –

 

Britain owned the map as well

as all the blacks; gave me voice,

fierce because of her, or so I’m told.

Would she have understood me

better than the man who grinned?

 

I grinned back. It happened quickly:

hen held upside down, neck wrenched.

The man grinned more; aimed

the corpse towards my mouth.

I shook my head and spoke.

 

He said: No English. Me: No meat.

If she were alive, would granny

force it down my throat,

enraged at waste in poverty?

He stared at specks of blood.

​

​

Mzungu: Bantu language-term used in the African Great Lakes region to refer to people of European descent.