Emancipation is white,
grey skin dotted in shark bites.
Cut to the tail—damages from a fishing line,
braided in helplessness and fissured visions—
pneumonia and an eye ulcer,
they found him on a beach
and named him Sulphur.

Seven months, they nursed him in rehab.

When he could hunt fish they tied a radio collar
and sent him into the causeway.

He was stiff at first. What is home?
If not in the direction of an aquarium.

Home is how warm it gets between the flaps—
liquid charcoal around the shadows and bends.
The chiaroscuro of red light and a dorsal fin spattered,
attacked by a tiger shark.

Rescued too late. A tennis-ball of a heart,
and smoke in the irises.

White skin in a brown country
under 300 years of hukumat—
with throbbing natural organs
and still 'a bloody primitive'.

Porcelain assumptions
through imperial glints. Where is home?
If not in the direction of a museum.

Medium-sized decorative installation.
Hung in a hallway on a nail.
Stuffed with rags, synthetic ideologies
Speaking shark-syllables.
Sulphur is now a life-like specimen—
knifed with a wider smile over his face.

'Sometimes we can't stop nature in its coursing.'

Brown skin in a white country
after 100 years of citizenship—
embalmed and upholstered
and still 'a bloody immigrant'.