Poetry Bulawayo

She watches leaves fall down She tries to soothe her soul under the flashing light of the moon She realizes - more pain. The grip of fear, leaves her trembling like a lost sheep in a vast forest. She weeps  but her strength fails her She is too weak, the pain cannot be described She smiles feebly to her dying infant cuddled to her skinny arms She smells death but it seems worthy for her now She is like leaf  which will blow  away with wind She is like a moving skeleton, her hips which used to mark her womanhood have disappeared, Her soul is shattered like a mud calabash. She has dead memories for she remembers nothing good except the loud and unfaithful husband just like a tattoo.    She realises how it begun She coughs and spits blood She is a poor innocent soul paying the fate of being married and lobola paid for She didn’t have a chance . She is indeed damned She realises that she will fade awa...

Those who come close to putting sta-soft in their hair And jik on their faces Maybe they do. Those who know where pizza inn is where the salon is where KFC is They don’t know where the library is. Those who have six inch fake nails Razor cut Hundred percent Weave et cetera Those with bright –red lips and fake Chinese face powder Those who insist on accented broken English Those who think the definition of good boyfriend is a car . Those who put sta-soft in their hair and jik on their faces, I call them plastic women.

An underpaid clerk came back from lunch picking his teeth clean with a matchstick to impress a co-worker, the girl at the switchboard whose lunch was steak and chips Yet his meal was a half-hour long nap and half a litre of water drunk from a tap in the park.