Angel

Authors

Claire Harris

Abstract

It possible that I'm an angel. No, not possible, really likely. After all I'm black. Blacker than most African. An' I born in these Americas. Black like night, like a kinda velvet, an' in my secret places, I got this dark musty pink like those rare orchid. Three, four hundred years of clean, pure blood. Is not that I want to sound like Nazi. What it mean is that we aint had the opportunity to enjoy the advantage of ravage: You 'complish anything is because you half-white, otherwise you black. A little bit like Ben Johnson: Canadian win gold medal; Jamaican found guilty of drug taking. Instead everybody want to keep we down. In we place. Is so some of we does smile a lot. But it have compensation. Is not possible to confuse who you really is. In my family a lot of we take the opportunity to be mostly happy in weself, respectable, polite, hardworking. But we learn early to talk we talk. An it seem like each generation we does grow more beautiful. Cheek bone higher, hair thicker and more curly, neck longer, head perch right on top, small and round. Every bit a we the right size, 'cept the eyes. They getting larger, blacker, deeper. Way way back from them fort in Ghana, from them ship, we could see what pass next. Is how we never there when massa come.

Recommended Citation

Harris, Claire, Angel, Kunapipi, 15(1), 1993.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol15/iss1/10