When he said he wanted to call me a race
my knotted answer
was not facetious
it was throat | silhouette
forbidden escape
the intruders suggested i write about gender
instead of race, race instead of madness
madness instead of Blackness (when he said
he wanted to call me a race he accelerated
the construction process;
i am punching bright holes in each wall of this building)
when they talk about white homes
i think of a mental health ward
when they talk about white homes
i think of my resolute sketch of a body
when they talk about white homes
my shell changes colour (a poem
is a poem) | when he said he wanted to call me a race
he meant i was crossing the border
of his crisis | a crisis that would claim me eventually
because colour must be inhabited, ingested, immanent
protoconch → colourless
circular shell → iridescent forms a shoreline
between bespoke body and electr(on)ic footnotes
body turns to b(u)oy(e)d | letters swap | sprout | places shaped to transpose
prismatic weirdness
into the deep
certainty of
limitless
variation
Fleur Lyamuya Beaupert (she/they) is an Australian poet of Tanzanian and Anglo-Indian descent, living on Wangal land. Their work has appeared in Anomaly, Not Very Quiet, Rigorous, Social Alternatives, Scum, Meniscus, and elsewhere.
