—for Tokoloho

When I get back from dying, there’s furniture
under my dust, the whole household
despairing of life the way cells imprison
the Troy Davises and still grin steel, while hollow

is the attitude, while pilgrims waylay stragglers.
But when I reach Qoaling the mood has settled; waits
at the door my sister, Freedom, which her clan is,
urged by the carrier of her name. I hear a gunshot

of sound approaching, there’s backyard crying
where Lumumba lived and died. Built-in staves
stare at it; grief finds a tether till a child
is born, ink of hope, turban a white-worn

pyramid top, a pharaoh on the lip of dawn.
Let rocks scorn monoliths, as wail the ancients,
to say what a compatible thing is; a concrete
stare, or freedom where long rivers meet.

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Tokoloho, Kananelo, Rethabile, Seitebatso, Tšoanyane, Khotsofalang