Robyn Bolam reflects on the nature of identity and how it affects refugees in this poem from her new collection, Hyem (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95). Born in Newcastle, she is Emeritus Professor at St Mary’s University and editor of the Bloodaxe anthology Eliza’s Babes: Four Centuries of Women’s Poetry in English.

                 WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

The locum held my arm gently, wrapped a cuff around it

and squeezed in air, ‘Just round the corner,’ I told him.

It was London. ‘No, originally - where are you from?’

‘Northumberland,’ I said. ‘But before you came to this country?’

‘I was born in the north of England.’ Why did this matter?

He apologised profusely. ‘I’m so sorry; I thought you were like me.’

~

My blood group is more common in India; my hair and skin could

place me elsewhere. Ir’s a mistake doctors had made before but,

unlike then, I felt sad at disappointing him. He might have been

happy to find we came from the same city or village. Go back

far enough and who knows? Perhaps we all have hidden links.

He didn’t ask why my blood pressure was lower than usual.

~

‘Where are you from? ’It’s the question at every border they reach

after walking miles in the rain, the heat. To say ‘Syria’ might

take them through, though often, now, they are refused wherever

they’ve come from – Syria, Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Pakistan.

When someone runs from war, danger, lack of food – perhaps

just wants to thrive – where are the questions we need to ask?