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Six November, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

The line is long; many people have been waiting
behind an old man who arrived there before them,
his sponge mattress flattened still near the door.
A door like no other. This isn't new, a snake long
as when South Africa queued to quell it, all those
moons ago, waited to cut its head off with a panga
for the first time after many years of venom. Kill it.
Not knowing that its head sprouts back each time
more determined than ever. Though it’s cold here
at this time of the year you do not care at all—
and maybe it is all the better because you won't go
to the beach, to a picnic in the park, but will be here
standing in unison with bredren before this entrée,
which is like no other, with your mind all made
about which head of the snake to cut and remove.

On this day in 1806, a line extended from this booth
to all other ends of town—and Lincoln was elected.
Do you feel how an extension of those four hundred
and twelve score years and four days ago is like?
The way you were attached to your mother before
birth, and yearn for the comfort of her still, the tough
cord that fed you, that birth water you swam in?
Or it is 1996 and Bill’s blowing a sax in a black suit
and dark sun shades, before the scandal that led
to his impeachment for sex in the White House.
Times were different then, but not the day, which is
today, six days into the eleventh month of three
hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days. You
are at that mirror of your life, looking at how best
not to scowl, trying not to shout don’t cut in line!
to the scurrying little lady carrying midnight bags,
and/or some person standing up off the pavement
to recover their name and/or the etymology of it.








This post first appeared on Poéfrika, please read the originial post: here

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Six November, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

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