I cannot not hear you,

Your voice,

and your paper bags rustling,

full of gifts.

For the season that’s in it.



You will bring them home,

wrap them.

Offer them up with Love.



With Love.



We are all capable of Love.

Even you.

Despite your mouth, your words, your hate.

Muslims.

All of them.

You say it loud enough for ‘BurkaBurka’ to hear.
(Your words not mine).



She who stares out the window,

proud face,

sweaty palms holding the bar with a

white knuckle grip.



It’s a hijab, by the way.

Soft H.



I figure to myself,

if I too, were to indulge in ignorance,

and if I too,

were to go down the broad generalisation route;

lethargic sigh

I bow my head in shame and,

my heart leaks inside,

as I think of your ancestors.

Your Caucasian, European, Christian ancestors.

Your bloodline.

MY Bloodline.

Your line-of-blood.



Our long thick crusty trail of blood.



I stand between you and she.

I smile but I know she cannot see.

It’s us against them.

Just get me off, off, off this tram.

She thinks, I imagine.



And my heart cries for the blood on my hands,

that you reminded me of.

And it cries for the backs of the world’s indigenous peoples

and slaves that my ancestors paved a New World over.



And their children’s children’s children thinking

that their hands are clean

just because

their victims

are

forgotten.