Colonisers | Poetry

They came on ships

With horses and gunpowder they stole from the neighbours.

They stood in rows of red,

fresh wounds carved into our backs with garden rakes.

They made us serve them on our dining tables

With forks made of braided veins and splintered bone.

(They didn’t know we ate with our hands).

They strangled us with collars,

Turned us into their guard dogs

And set us loose against each other.

They split our house down the middle with a pen.

Its ink

Was my grandfather’s blood.

How easy it was for them

To put a hand into our home

And pull out the honeycomb, still sticky with our pride and will and gold.

It is no wonder

The bees learned how to sting.

– I wish we had learned too.