COLOUR PROBLEMS IN THE FAMILY Poem by Adil Jussawalla

Mother forgot her features when the rest,
Pinker with Persia, found her future black.

So father turned up, obligingly darker,
His iron skin scorched in its shirt of rust.

Yellow frogs, grandmother called us,
Sallow herself, brass with a touch of ash.

Then you, rose, haven for browns and blacks,
Said that colours that ran in my family
Had no place in your sun.

True.
They were colours I shed on your shoulder,
Bled on your shirt as you spoke.
They were true, and continue to run.