Salt & Pepper

We once lived in a world of black and white,
red and yellow, salt and pepper,
blood and piss, melting into seas,
lakes and rivers, blue-green giving way
to ships that sailed the circumference,
defying notions of a flat world,
bringing the flesh and blood
of the Africas, spice and staple
of other people, saffron robes
and silken roads, entangled
in the long matted hair
of our own indigenous,
and we called them
“uncultured”, as though
we had sailed those seas,
crossed those lands
where culture reigned
Supreme – that is
the extent of
our own
deceit.