Brown Bodies

Around a fire we warmed stories of 

plant and animal ancestors, alive in 

our brown bodies, encircled in golden 

light and safety between soil and skyline. 

Our ancestors excavated alive 

by ships with hungry white jaws. 

Between soil and skyline, terror swallowed 

whole our brown bodies, lands and lores. 

Hungry white jaws named us savage. 

Shackled for silk and spice, the story

of our brown bodies swallowed and silent 

in the furnace of white modernity. 

Silk and spice fuelled fluorescent cities. 

Our ancestors fossilised, burned as coal

in the inferno of white modernity. 

Our brown bodies steadfast and whole. 

Coal burned and boiled our oceans, 

sunk brown bodies to seafloor sediment.

White billionaires blasted holes in our lands 

robbing the last seams of our ancestors’ bones. 

Brown bodies rise from seafloor sediment.   

In the watery dark, with plastic and pearl, 

we light our ancestors’ seams with golden 

stories around a fire, warming our new world.