Selina Tusitala Marsh

The Young and the Restless (1994)
 

where are all you brown women?
where are all my selves?
eight fifty to see
another pretty blond blue-eyed face
not my face
not my skin or eye
screened yet again
for my pleasure –
leisure becomes arduous

is there a constitution
for prostitution
to be screened every other night?
Coloured black and red and sway
like they always do -
those sexy jungle bunnies

and my shades of brown fall down
and colour white slowly
like the snow on the tv
when all images are gone
then there is me
slow fade to black
a lack of identity
turns me down
tuns me off
screens my self
sentenced to irrelevancy

Where are all you brown women?
Have they made you more than maid yet?
Maine is a mammy on ‘Young and the Restless’
Selina is the cop, she’s young but she’s useless
Hattie is a mama, she’s ageless and sexless
Lieutenant U’hura is a go-go
she’s thin and not breast-less
Mona Lisa is a seducer
she’s cheap and she’s hopeless
Diana Ross is Billy
she sings but she’s tongue-less
Donna Summer the performer
was young now toothless
Oprah is the eyes
her mouth makes her waist-less
the gang girls boom-boom
their young but their tasteless

this less
is loss for me
craving for identity and screened reflections of what
I am not
leaves my brown selves
young and restless

.