I

 

Sunrise - her eyes are darker than black.

She leaves election frenzy far below

where music grabs the city by throaty,

smoky reeds, lasers pulsing purple high,

dazzling drunken stars lurching home from their

celestial party.

She breathes thin air already warm with scent

of eucalyptus and wild fig trees.

 

Table Mountain looms over the bay,

draped in its cloth of mist.

A breeze drifts across her skin

- she abandons herself

to the secrets of the day.

The morning is a wide open door.

For the first time,

she understands the meaning of freedom.

 

II

 

She ambles home

behind the mountain where Cape Flats creep -

a running sore seeping murder, rape.

Dust devils whirl

up windy streets,

invade shabeens,

throw omens at unheeding men

who jig their feet, swig the hours away.

 

She pauses by Old Samuel's shack;

his garden struggles for life in scarred paint pots.

In her path a jut-boned cow

grazes newspapers spinning off the track,

chews stories of extortion, drug gangs, hi-jacks.

Cupping the cow's haunches she traces

ribs with straw nibs,

fate-lines in the grimy fur.

 

III

 

And still rubber necklaces burn;

smoke chokes townships

blinds the sun.

Clouds loom

black against black, darker than blood,

bruising the horizon.

 

©2006 Linda Lamus.  Reproduced with permission of the author.