POETS TO KNOW: MMADIKA MPHUTHI
Abangoma
I am Abangoma who’s voices were drowned by sirens and flashing blue lights.
I imagine my sack of flesh manoeuvring its way through a feigned reality.
I feel isphithiphithi everywhere.
I dream that the black body finds solace outside of death before the gift of life escapes me.
I am Abangoma above all.
The Erosive Nature of
I was but ____ when I fell in love with Okwonkwo
Now I see him everywhere, everyday, like a love that refuses its own mortality
A love that would be confronted with a gross lack of the very elements that which conceptualize it
Unrecognizable
You thought you could sway through his turmoil
You tried to walk through Katrina
The women who glide, dance in the eyes of ruffling winds
Women so mystical the naked eye dare not set itself upon them
But leer close
To witness things fall apart.
To the femmes who are up at the crack of dawn to participate in meal prep entailing hours of chopping vegetables at gatherings, only to be the last ones to eat. Serving ourselves after countless hours of serving others.
For the “uppity” femmes who sit with their arms neatly folded and forbidding, and their freshly done manicures stating their defiance against gender role performance.
We’re magic. Gqwala ngathi.