Lethabo Chabalala

Offer me nothing
No pearls or perfume
Write me neither music nor lyrics
Seek not my face in your heart
...

On this, another's ordinary summer day
My spirit is awash with a sorrow I cannot reconcile
To myself or explain to my observers
And a void echoes the soothing words I've not learned.
...

There have been no genocides here!
There have been no men cloaked in the name of
of revolutions and the jungle's benevolence,
waiting, stalking their prey
...

I now know
I dreamed you up one December ago
First it was summer dresses
Blue skies and plaid shirts
...