Everytime I look into your face
I see
banana groves bending in the rain, children
being born - one a year ; cousins, brothers,
and neighbours gifting tall lilies
for each child. I see hills
as round as your wife’s breasts
before she bore your first,
or as your round cheeks, and as freshly green :
age and memory have not caught up with you.
Everytime I listen to your voice, I hear
your graceful-horned cows shuffling and lowing
by streams in open water-meadows,
I hear clear water over stones,
that throws itself, out of sight, into the muddy
river. I hear shots of laughter
at a wedding, and shouts
of joy when the sweet banana liquor
flows up the woodstraw straight into your eyes.
Everytime I come close to your skin
I smell the thud of hoe on the red earth
of your small holding. I smell the sweat
of your long morning’s work in the sun
washed off by the afternoon’s rain.
I smell the churning sour milk
and the sour sorghum beer your wife prepares
sitting on her heels. I smell the milky
skin of the new baby she carries on her back.
I don’t smell the children
you killed and threw into
the muddy river. I don’t hear
their cries that turn your nights
into dark days, slower than tears.
I don’t see the face of the woman
you plundered, first with your sex
then with your harvest knife,
taking her life as you beheaded sorhgum
every June that you remember: but that one.
I don’t see a bed on which to rest
your nightmares, your limbs stiff from too much squatting
and surviving; your skin
that glows with unnature
Every time I look into your face
I see tenderness trying to redeem you
the quick soft pull of your fingers
sewing a pillow for the cell-mate
whose dreams are more bottomless than yours
but in your eyes I see a mind emptied
of all past: and all hope
every time I hear your voice
– what’s a voice ? your cough stills
all conversation – I hear the blood that fills
your lungs with sentenced death,
