No I could never wash myself enough.

I do not wish to be a British girl

And yet I’ve had the good of empire wealth

Hard won by others’ hands and others’ health.

So in complicit luxury I kneel

And kiss the feet of those we used to steal.

 

In sweaty filthy dark we chained you down

In service to our tastebuds and our crown.

We trod you underfoot with polished heel

And gave you numbers so as not to feel.

 

No ‘sorry’ now could ever bring to life

Your children or your grandpa or your wife.

No ‘sorry’ now could ever make you feel

The way you did before he made you kneel.

No ‘sorry’ now could ever bring back days,

Or clothes, or food, now lost to British ways.

No ‘sorry’ now could take back words that stole

Your childhood; spray paint insults take their toll.

No shame, or guilt, or ‘sorry’ now could clean

Our monied hands of their blood-sugar sheen.

 

And even now I sit in candied bliss,

In clothes that maybe felt the slaver’s kiss

And drink my tea and wonder where it grew

And if the one who grew it got paid too.

We tend to think of slaves as those who died

Long long ago, brought here by whip and tide.

But slaves are kept in farms and brothels here

They live today in pain, exhaustion, fear.

 

No I could never wash myself enough.

I do not wish to be a British girl.

And yet, if I’m to take rich empire gains,

Then I must wear its rancid greedy stains.

It is not much to pay for what we took,

So I will hope to hang from history’s hook.

 

I do not wish to be a British girl,

Great Britishness: it makes my white toes curl.