Who Is My Name?

• Gabriel Thomas, Grade 11
• Poetry
• 2022

Who is my name?
A holy woman of old,
took my family from its fold.
Renamed to mask my ancestor’s stain.

Who stole my past from their home,
tortured among white sands for being stone.
Cloaking what is anchored to the land.

Who is my name?
It’s a veil that holds,
my past now forever untold.
They are the assimilator of shame.

I feel my whole line in our littoral.
I see the beach here a mix of black and bland,
I keep their pain in my label.