In Olney River

What is it about these white families,
staring at me, from the stone steps
of Olney riverbank, that irks me so?
Perhaps it’s how the bush of my beard
mops the river’s water into tiny droplets.
Or maybe it’s my black middle-aged body
(narrowing in the shoulders and sagging
at the chest). But then again it could be
my bobbing comfort or how water flows over me
like silk or how the sun magnifies my dark skin.

But no, it’s their very freedom that angers
me, that these men, women and even children
feel free to hold their stare and, how in its
constancy, it conveys a hatred of every part
of my now submerged body.
In a gaze that does not break or cease,
not of curiosity, but filled with contempt,
absent of spiritual hygiene, ominously unified,
and without regard to offence or intrusion.

Oh Lord I have come
here to rest but their eyes won’t grant me grace
nor ease. And what now of the anger, Lord,
where do I put it? So I adjust by turning away
to let them stare at my creased and thickened neck
and the bumps on my back, as I turn my gaze
on the dark green heads and yellow beaks
of resting goosander amongst the dried, faded reeds.
Yet another adjustment I must make, to add to the many
of my living, just to enjoy some sun in this river’s bend.

Roger Robinson

Roger Robinson is an award-winning writer and performer from Trinidad now living in Britain.