UGONNA-ORA OWOH

Black Arabian

Being Arab must be so black.
On YouTube, Hassan is asked
if Sudanese are Arabian and
are as well black.
There are no responses.
The sun I think might exist
one place than the other,
I mean, being black is trying
too much to be African,
but without African what is it
black holds that is too much of heritage.
All the girls that say to me
‘I’m Nubian’ on facebook are not black,
but by continent, because they have black blood.
They said black people were made out
of black clay and there is too much racial
syndrome people cannot avoid on social media.
Was Cleopatra black or not.
I suggest she wasn’t because all
the girls that have ever been casted as
Cleopatra in the school play were light skinned.
Self flattery must be a disease.
They say to be black is to be loved,
to be cherished.
Did our father owe their skin
enough to see how it was cherished?
I think of all the Arab bodies
black, fair, slightly
but what matters is the inside,
does the soul return back to God?

Abandonment

I dreamt today of things I will never have
[home]
[ love]
Love brought me home
Home brought me love
How will I live if I don’t find home
How will I live if I don’t find love

My mother young and restless could never find home
My mother young and restless could never find love
She wandered the street in night,
drank too much moon water,
her tongue tasted of salt,
her hair smelt of desert.

Returning to Kilburn in 1999,
her father gave her love,
her father gave her home.
But for our mothers,
what separate them from home?
what separate them from love?

A man who cut the blood between
her legs as if scissoring papers.
Forced himself into love,
forced himself into home.
made her home
made her love.

In nine months, she thought of the bad things she could do to love,
In nine months, she thought of the bad things she could do to home.
Tiny hemorrhage began to cloth.
When she gave birth, she called him home
when she gave birth, she called him love

She couldn’t give him love,
she couldn’t give him home.
Now a boy and don’t have home,
now a boy and don’t have love 
except the ones he’s forced to share
in little bits with the rest of the
motherless children in a convent.

Walls with fissures, holes wide enough to swallow their heads.
He slide his tiny fingers at eight to find love
he slide his tiny finger at eight to find home

Love brought him shame
home brought him shame

He’s still finding love,
he’s still finding home.

Hope

Inside this body is a country
I will never think to rule its territory.

The sun as my first father’s age
builds its archives in rays.

Watch its smiles,
cut until it achieves nothing.

Think of scrutiny,
think of the things this body

urges me to listen and the climate
slash me a big wound from tornado,

underestimate the weight of my run.
Unlike a pain-free ghost,

I don’t stray too far from the things
I’m most assure will ruin me,

call me dead, call me a body without vision.
The stars would give me it bright names,

save me, heal me from what I posses
will kill me soundless.

Charm the dark, re-gift its new name. Until
the planets draw too much strength, call me hope.

Ugonna-Ora Owoh is a femme-queer poet, writer and model. His works has appeared in The Southampton Review, The Malahat Review, Jalada Africa, The Rumpus and others. He is a 2019 Editor choice winner of the Stephen A. Dibiase poetry prize. He is a poetry staff at The Helen literary magazine.