Tsholofelo, My Hope (A tribute to the Asian & African women I have
lived with)
How shall I paint your portrait?
In purple, in black, in green...
Passionate and romantic...
Dancing a woman's tango.
Tsholofelo, I see you
primed in blue maid's uniform
serving hot coffee or tea
in locked executive rooms.
in construction work: digging;
chipping boulder's; sweating black;
climbing, laying hollow blocks;
looking sturdy; undaunted.
How shall I paint your bright hope?
In your womb, a child so dear;
Trapped in a world so unfair
Where diamonds are not rare.
How shall I paint your portrait?
Purple with your bleeding heart;
Black with your skin so unspoiled;
Green with your unfailing hope.
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Breaking Away
I lived for you. I adored you.
More than anything in this world.
I breathed your pulse. I called for you
When disgust loomed my life in pain.
Now you break away, leaving me
Shattered and dead wanting justice
to come to prevail over me
...or in suffocation I rest.
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Petals
Red, torn, wilted
hanging loose
like threads drying,
crying hard.
But no more time
to bud and start anew.
Dead petals
cry no more.
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