I would like to believe
we have been forgiven,
that the end justifies
means, that prejudice
has been copy-edited out
of the nursery reader,
that the black man
with roving eyes
and moneyed breath
is not after all Tamil,
a dirty devil come
to spook our children
at night who wish only
to dream of sweets
and cricket, and how
they pumped
the minority during
the tea-break in front
of the tuck shop
in a public hazing,
not approved
but allowed
by the benign authority,
the Principal
of laissez-faire–
oh let our boys
steam off,
better now
than grown up
and angry with wives
or trying to get a job
in the Tamil-run
Public Works Department,
or the Civil Service,
or even the thosai kaddai.
Of course that is history
now, the Thirty Year
War has been won,
and Tamil shopkeepers
must hide their newspapers
under lungis, and speak
Sinhala at checkpoints,
or while seeking
entry into government
buildings.
Their identity cards
will betray them
of course constantly,
as we noted in Afrikkan
guidance read in preparing
our civic practice,
the administration
of our post- 1956 democracy
based on the tyranny
of the majority
and the humble
subservience
of these once
mighty clerks.
Let them eat strings.
Let them learn
that when one party
wins, another gets
kicked in the butt,
that pottus are walking
invitations
to unseemly violations,
that 100,000 relations
are still under lock and key
in the Northern camps,
that cleaning up
must be sped up
so we can get these
potential voters out
to their farms and shacks
so they can prepare
succulent meals
for the hordes of
war tourists,
the gawkers
in search of
burnt-up pick-up
trucks, and the family
members
who want to see
where their sons
and daughters died.
