Hello Friends,
Today’s poem by Haudenosaunee poet Kenzie Allen is a longer piece than what I typically send, but I hope you’ll stick with it. “A Date with the Ghost of the British Empire” appears in Allen’s first poetry book, Cloud Missives (2024). Allen is an Assistant Professor of English at York University, and a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.
Enjoy,
Ællen
Today’s poem by Haudenosaunee poet Kenzie Allen is a longer piece than what I typically send, but I hope you’ll stick with it. “A Date with the Ghost of the British Empire” appears in Allen’s first poetry book, Cloud Missives (2024). Allen is an Assistant Professor of English at York University, and a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin.
Enjoy,
Ællen
A Date with the Ghost of the British Empire
He shows up half-drunk and handsy,
in a polo shirt with exactly six popped collars,
all seersucker and patterned in tiny muskets,
his shorts covered in birds who no longer exist.
It’s five o’clock somewhere, and the sun hasn’t set on him, yet.
He manspreads across three seats at the bar.
He orders mai tais, tries to tell you of a gin joint
in—where else—Bombay, where he left his best stereoscope
and twinned pictures of all the known wonders of the world
or all the known wonders known to him.
He’s three sheets to the wind, brass telescope tuned
to the far-off, the dark heart, another beautiful territory
ripe for harvest, where brown-skinned men bend in the fields
and dream only of night; where women give up
the craft of their hands and bodies at his behest.
In his wallet picture-foldout, he keeps postage stamps
of every land he’s ever held, even briefly, in vast array.
Things were peaceful, he says,
back when he was in charge.
A shame, they’d lost the Colonies,
so early on. She thinks of her ancestors who fought in that war,
who gave up their arrows for guns, who offered
white corn against white starvation.
What did the empire know of starvation?
That’s why they call it a commonwealth, he explains.
For the common—wealth—see?
The next mai tai comes on a place mat made from banana leaf.
The bar itself, a cabinet of estranged curiosities—
yellowed teeth in jars, baby moccasins, carved African masks—
arranged neatly in rows and tacked to the wall overhead;
alcoves of mustached men hidden
behind velvet ropes and brocade curtains
delineated with poppy blossoms and tea leaves and
Chinese screens with tiny white faces;
around the room, every possible shade of ivory;
bronze lamps shaped like monkeys;
chairs upholstered in what might by monkeys;
mosaic vases holding ostrich feathers;
a model giraffe made of cow leather
with limpid, deep glass eyes. Every possible creature
taxidermied into open-mouthed surprise.
Such a fine specimen, he says of her.
He asks to put his calipers around her lovely skull.
His best of everything
belongs to someone else. Malta, Minorca, Gibraltar,
she rolls the names around in her dark mouth,
Zanzibar, Sarawak, British Ceylon
—no, Sri Lanka—Mumbai—Myanmar—
think of all the names lost to his sons.
Think of all the tongues
flattened and torn,
or tax, collected.
The beaver
skins. The elephant
tusk. The model armies
splayed across the map.
He doesn’t ask her to call him a cab,
but, of course, she does. She bundles him inside
with his tartan scarf and tweed wool cap,
knowing he’s so prone to cold. Even now,
heaven forfend she be blamed for his death.
He makes on last pass: A protectorate! A dominion!
Come, join the fold.
She whistles to the cabbie, shakes her head,
pats the door as it slides out of sight.
She turns back to the world and its own wonders.
The sun has set, and it is night.
■
He shows up half-drunk and handsy,
in a polo shirt with exactly six popped collars,
all seersucker and patterned in tiny muskets,
his shorts covered in birds who no longer exist.
It’s five o’clock somewhere, and the sun hasn’t set on him, yet.
He manspreads across three seats at the bar.
He orders mai tais, tries to tell you of a gin joint
in—where else—Bombay, where he left his best stereoscope
and twinned pictures of all the known wonders of the world
or all the known wonders known to him.
He’s three sheets to the wind, brass telescope tuned
to the far-off, the dark heart, another beautiful territory
ripe for harvest, where brown-skinned men bend in the fields
and dream only of night; where women give up
the craft of their hands and bodies at his behest.
In his wallet picture-foldout, he keeps postage stamps
of every land he’s ever held, even briefly, in vast array.
Things were peaceful, he says,
back when he was in charge.
A shame, they’d lost the Colonies,
so early on. She thinks of her ancestors who fought in that war,
who gave up their arrows for guns, who offered
white corn against white starvation.
What did the empire know of starvation?
That’s why they call it a commonwealth, he explains.
For the common—wealth—see?
The next mai tai comes on a place mat made from banana leaf.
The bar itself, a cabinet of estranged curiosities—
yellowed teeth in jars, baby moccasins, carved African masks—
arranged neatly in rows and tacked to the wall overhead;
alcoves of mustached men hidden
behind velvet ropes and brocade curtains
delineated with poppy blossoms and tea leaves and
Chinese screens with tiny white faces;
around the room, every possible shade of ivory;
bronze lamps shaped like monkeys;
chairs upholstered in what might by monkeys;
mosaic vases holding ostrich feathers;
a model giraffe made of cow leather
with limpid, deep glass eyes. Every possible creature
taxidermied into open-mouthed surprise.
Such a fine specimen, he says of her.
He asks to put his calipers around her lovely skull.
His best of everything
belongs to someone else. Malta, Minorca, Gibraltar,
she rolls the names around in her dark mouth,
Zanzibar, Sarawak, British Ceylon
—no, Sri Lanka—Mumbai—Myanmar—
think of all the names lost to his sons.
Think of all the tongues
flattened and torn,
or tax, collected.
The beaver
skins. The elephant
tusk. The model armies
splayed across the map.
He doesn’t ask her to call him a cab,
but, of course, she does. She bundles him inside
with his tartan scarf and tweed wool cap,
knowing he’s so prone to cold. Even now,
heaven forfend she be blamed for his death.
He makes on last pass: A protectorate! A dominion!
Come, join the fold.
She whistles to the cabbie, shakes her head,
pats the door as it slides out of sight.
She turns back to the world and its own wonders.
The sun has set, and it is night.
■