by Mangaliso Buzani
At the backyard of my home where the teardrops of sad angels have rusted the wires, I will make
myself a car from old wires and drive it around new brighton. then I will lose the last teardrop that
ever turned me into a sad cloud with grey cheeks, making a sunflower pregnant so that it can weep
seeds for my pigeons.
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My mother six feet under my feet will touch my sole, and in front of her I will smile, cracking the
windows of the my pain until they fall on the ground and disappear before my eyes. Last night I
cried so much I became the mud. Now frogs are croaking into my ears, fishes are blowing bubbles
up to the sky, my soul in crutches is limping towards the door where the meat is skinned away from
the bones. I come to meet mapule my grandmother behind the moon completely a thin air to talk
about the thorns that holed my feet to be imbhawula.
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There is a creaking sound inside myself like an old gate with rusted hinges being opened, maggie
our late dog is here with white fur and barking ‘I’m back’. I hear in my ears the noise of my empty
stomach reaching the roof of my heart, the sound of my teardrops hitting the faces of my bones, last
night I fell flat on my face and died. My grandmother woke me in settlers hospital with a drip in my
arm. My soul came back and I started walking to my flat at number 76 jasbir.
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The way towards you is full of holes, thirsty I sit on my haunches and drink some water from your eye sockets. If you were not around I would be dead of dehydration. A fountain from your tombstone
makes the papenkei graveyard green. I’m standing before the heap of soil that has hidden your bones for
some time now. Talking quietly, a tall man with a grey suit takes off his jacket and starts shouting with
Afrikaans with his hands raised up. I continue to talk quietly with the dead.
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The sun strikes my head, the fire goes down my throat to turn my heart to ashes. I open my mouth,
my tongue breaks and falls on the ground. Today I have totally lost my speech. Mother of birds teach
me how to sing! I want to reach the sky and sing some poems to the stars, maybe god will throw
back my tongue, so that when I open my mouth again, I can recite a poem for my deaf ears.