Chinese-Australian
i hate the hyphen –
feigning simultaneity rarely available
a horizontal bar
denying vertical power
frontal collision
these words are no clasped hands
no piano keys, sister cities
but lines in the sand
guiding police
chineseAustralian
the camelCaps compound is
rightly awkward
lumbering, burdened, lopsided
— a strange animal bearing
unequal weight, a more subtle metaphor
for hybridity than the mule,
but no less apt — my ancestors too
walked shoeless, spat on the sand,
and were considered ugly
but useful.
Chinese/Australian
i love the slash /
the slant truth
suggestive of my not-too-tilted eyes
glancing sideways
a hooded stare anticipating
the racialising gaze
i love the slash
the very word’s violence
the sign a falling wall
a guarded border
a porous skin
a heaving ambivalence
May 2008
