Where I come from, you would be comforted by a lullaby
© by Edessa Ramos
written and performed at Poetry Africa 2001
“I did not come to Durban to sleep”
that’s what I told the hotel clerk two hours before sunrise.
The city at night is my friend
she swallows me in her sensuous smile
shelters me in vulgar embrace
stitches doubts and longing across tapestries
of my heart so that I venture
deeper into her veins.
Lights lash against a sky otherwise opaque
strung up like stars banished to the shoreline
gracing the neck of my sadness
as I spot the child turn from West Avenue
into the backstreets, dark skin
skimming the edges of twisted lamplight.
Following her trail I sniff
all of her youthful years
cradled in all her histories
of untold hurt.
She stiffens slightly as the pimp
leaks out from the crevice of thick shadows
while she glides between aborted buildings
empty spaces decoded in her empty gaze
laced in the knots of white powder
her body the medium of exchange
a flash of thigh, a hint of armpit
shimmer under the moon’s despair
I puff deep into my lungs
deep into my gut
through parched soul and starving dreams
a desire to take her
in my arms and whisper
in her ear “may I
sing you a lullaby?” |