I knew a man who had a woman at every station;
each drenched in the perfume of her township,
oozing with the warmth of the bosoms and blankets
of their grandmothers.

Mahikeng fed him hugs;
a sea of a dress flaunting curves,
hiding the hell blazing in her chest
as she swallowed her wrath with a twisted pink-chalked smile.

Orkney wrapped her uneasy hope in tight jeans,
sliding sideways after a few beers gulped in a wind-shocked shack,
too sugar-drunk-sweet to sink into this hollow tube of a man;
a flower blooming in the shadow of a mine dump and loving what it knew.
(Her boobs, green apples; her nipples, peanuts poking her T-shirt
to a buzz of hooting taxis and GTIs.
Grime of life underneath her cotton-white All Stars,
crushing seeds into the ground.)

Orlando was older, a pot of slow-cooking stew –
simmering his soul as the future waited.
Tembisa was tea, trembling in a paper cup.

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Categories Fiction

Tags Dimakatso Sedite Poetry