Leaving in Four Parts

Part I

In a thousand invisible places
A charcoal sketch follows me
I am welded onto
A black and white
Willow tree
Molten
Raw
And obvious
I see me
Through the eyes of a black woman
Ambling a Joburg street
A white child on her back
Passing electric fences
Caring for them all
She collects the Indian Ocean
In a Coke bottle
It wakes me
Splashes over me
Squeezes me into glass

Part II

In a thousand invisible places
The streets preoccupy me
Jacaranda trees are me
Expanding with me
From the top outwards
The purple shade is me
A beast beats
Inside me
Jests with me
Taunts me
I’m not a Gnu
I’m a fucking Wildebeest
You tell me
Powerful on the plains
But with puny legs
Prancing on powder
Vanishing into a mineshaft
With the speed of a mamba

Part III

In a thousand invisible places
The Durban whaling station follows me
The blubber is me
Moving through me
Pink foam echoing secrets about me
Silencing the beeps
An electronic fish-finder
Radiates me
The lines of Indian fisherman
Ensnare me
Humour me
Undercurrents are me
Knots and spark plugs
Weigh down on me
Nothing will bite
Drifting bait
A powerboat is needed these days
Time won’t wait

Part IV

In a thousand invisible places
You beckon me
I am not me
Neither hard
Nor kind
Neither organic
Or designed
Unhindered
Reimagining all of me
I’m running now
Hightailing it
Leaving the big sky
That protects me
In another world
I won’t have to kowtow
I jump the doorway
Landing securely
On clay

Published by Brandon Hamber, Botsotso Magazine, 24 March 2022