Walking On Afternoon Poem by Makhosonke Dhlamini

The hour loosens its collar;
light leans like a tired clerk
against the ledgers of dust and leaves.
I walk—no, I am walked—
by streets that practice memory in silence,
each window rehearsing a life I might have lived.

A child drags a stick through the grammar of sand,
conjugating absence into play;
somewhere a radio misquotes love
in a language of static and weather.
The trees, punctual as civil servants,
stamp their shadows on the pavement—approved, approved—
while the sun files a late report on heat.
Do not ask what is meant by this brightness.
Meaning is a rumor the afternoon spreads
to keep the idle faithful.
We inherit the habits of light:
to fall on everything equally,
to leave without apology.
I pass a woman bargaining with oranges—
her hands measure time more honestly than clocks;
coins confess their thin allegiances.
A dog considers me with democratic doubt,
then pardons my existence with a yawn.
Even the wind, a minor official,
circulates notices no one reads.
Somewhere, a man forgives himself aloud;
somewhere else, a promise drafts its own betrayal.
The city keeps minutes of these small proceedings,
archived in the dust behind the eyes.
And I, a temporary witness,
sign where I am told—
name illegible, intention pending.
Yet the hour persists in its gentle propaganda:
that to walk is to be amended,
that each step edits the previous one,
that the self is a document under revision.
So I continue, corrected by distance,
while the afternoon, patient as law,
waits for the evening to cross-examine light.