Margaret Alice Second (24 January 1961 / South Africa)

And then at school we did cycles,
the cycle of the frog in standard 2,
went downstairs to the old library
to see the transparencies, later we
did the cycle of the fern, I copied it
from the book while watching TV
in standard 8

The cycle of water in standard 10
which I explained by means of the
life of a small drop of water going
on a trip from the clouds, teacher
praised my tale; life still moves in
cycles I, think - we all have been
programmed like the golems

With millions of chems in our heads
like those paper music rolls with per-
forations that made pianos play,
our heads are run by perforation
patterns which we received from
our culture, society and the world,
I wish I could change

The paper music rolls in my head