A POEM
By Sanelisiwe Yekani
Fix yourself
Fix your hair. Check the time.
Check if your wallet is still in your purse. Don’t look around too much, keep your head rather still and fixed.
Cross your legs, the right one first. Swap over, allow this to continue.
Fold your arms. Return to neutral;
Don’t cry.
Why are you crying?
Whistle, hum a tune
You dared to wait
You might as well master thee art of waiting.
Don’t mind the dead leaves filling up around you
You remember there was a willow tree here once
Be sure to wear colours that blend in with the background,
Can’t be seen too often, waiting
The neighbours will have your name for dinner.
Check your make-up, clear your throat
So many things you want to say
Ensure that it was here that you were to wait
Have with you some whiskey
Some hard whiskey
To warm up your chest when your heart begins to freeze
Over.
Quick! Check your pulse
Might have forgotten to breathe there
Light up a cigarette.
Watch the colour of thee air around you change
Reset to a different neutral.
Ask all who pass by here to leave the gate slightly open
Ask them not to block the pathway
You’re waiting for something.
Just you and your thoughts now
And the dead leaves filling up around you
Nowhere to run, stuck in the mud now
Wonder if what you’re waiting for didn’t die. Out there; somewhere
In thee arms of a closer paradise.
Don’t break
Why are you breaking?
Pull yourself together
Maggots are waiting to divide pieces of you among them
Stay put.
Breathe; remain with yourself.
You dared to wait
You might as well master thee art of waiting.
Steady fixing, clearing, re-setting;
Trying to return
Steady breaking.
Steady.
Trying to gather yourself.
Look at you mastering a brutal trade; waiting.
Disappearing under all those dead leaves
You remember
There was a willow tree here once.
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