The Colour Of The Lines Poem by Ashik Mahmud

They act like
Muslims can't be Indians
Even though dogs can be
Even European dogs
Even tribal are not Indian
They act like
Hindus can't be Bangladeshi
Or Pakistani
Even tribal are not Bangladeshi
They learn all your Bengali yet you call them Mongoli.
They act like Hindus and Muslims
Can't be American or British
Like Jews could not be Germans for Hitler
Africans are nowhere
I look at your eyebrows
When you hear some Africans
As Hindus or Muslim or Christians or Jews
As if they can't be anyone-
Because they are African
I learn there a thing
The colour Black is not the colour of line,
Hardly know how to draw a line;
Lines are white for us, lines that separate.