The hovering boy

I have asked my siblings to help me
shift the furniture against the walls
into an arena, to make more room,
her madonna heart is within that room,
but there is not only her in there, sitting
with that long smile. An angel flies in
on one wing; now there's a mockery
of life, for there is no uncertainty
in the way we acknowledge a loss.
She knows the truth behind the world,
the surprises it peddles in darkness.
In my own room I put my belongings together,
for I must be on my way in order to be back.
She's in there, now, while night touches itself,
its fingers slow and lingering. She waits
until her boy comes in and floats to her
in that pernicious room, on the morning
of which she'll pick her things and pack,
in order to come back another day,
and wait for night that starts to arrive
when she leaves, and the boy flies away.

The horses

Those people did come in bakkies, four
perhaps, out of the west. When one of the men
came over, and touched our manes
with his hand, our mother rippled.
We had been taught to never neigh.
When one fine day a neighbour beat us
for eating his best beets and lettuces,
even then we only bit our lips and let air
ruffle our hair in his face while he struck.
But these men here spoke a language
we didn’t know. Father stood on his hind legs
and bared his teeth at them. And even
at that dark hour, with the stars watching,
mother walked over to our youngest, swished
flies off his face with her tail, then spun around
to face those men once again. No one neighed.
Not even when the shooting began.

--"Waslap", The Onslaught Press, 2015