Wednesday, October 26, 2022

PAMELA MORDECAI ~



 

Yellow Girl Blues

                                     for Jane King



My mama she done told me

she tell me every day

no mind your skin is yellow

you're a nigger anyway.


Yellow girl blues

yellow girl blues

I walking on the muddy road

in my sampata shoes.


So I grew up a nigger

please check on my behind,

my mouth, my nose, my curly

hair— I'm glad to know my kind.


Yellow girl blues

yellow girl blues.

I walking on the muddy road

in my sampata shoes.


And I go to America

and join in all the fights

sit in and demonstrate

and go to jail for Civil Rights.


Yellow girl blues

yellow girl blues.

I walk through so much macca

there's holes in all my shoes.


Dr King say it don't matter

he say we all is one —

the hose don't know the difference

nor the truncheon, nor the gun.


Yellow girl blues

yellow girl blues.

I feel the firewater

as it soak in through my shoes.


Now I come north to Canada

my story it is true

they look me in my face and say

"White woman, who is you?"


Yellow girl blues

yellow girl blues.

I walking in the macca still

and my own take away my shoes.



______________

A Fierce Green Place

New and Selected Poems

New Directions, 2022