My Name is My Name

Ami never let anyone call my sister Sam –
it always had to be Samina.
She said she’d rather be waterboarded
than let her daughter be whitewashed
by whites too conservative to spare
the extra syllables.

Ami never let anyone call me Eli –
it always had to be Elijah.
She said she loved bursting bubbles
of Baby Boomers who thought
Elijah was reserved for blonde-haired boys
with crosses around their necks.

Ami never let anyone misspell our surname –
it always had to be MacBean.
She said the A tethered me,
to my father’s Scottish side,
steady between his body beneath,
and his spirit above.

Elijah MacBean is a mixed-race British Kashmiri-Scottish writer from Accrington, Lancashire.