Poetry by Tafara Gava

Victoria Falls

she didn't intend to

appear–

without appearing. she didn't

mean to wash her hair

eternally, a white

sheet

cascading to rocks

jagged and balled like fists.

she whips it

back, and locks unfurl

till the hair

is

air–

machine-gun firing,

thundering

earth.

for whom this ritual?

is it for the man

sporting concrete skin, jodhpurs,

a rifle, one arm cocked at his

concrete waist?

contrapposto–

he will propose:

noose her

with a gold ring–

name her after

his widow mother whose other

children

are countries. it’s as decided

as concrete–

she is a bride, gown

billowing into rainbow.

he is

a groom ready

to leap–

into nuptials, eon-old waters.

Schwarze Kafka

sprayed and swept away–

dada is kafka’s

roach, nietzsche’s

horse. hungry he

slipped out

of grease-mired overalls,

musk of dirt and

iron, to sit me on his lap.

intrusive thoughts–

impinge themselves on the blank

sky of his mind.

bent on play i said

dada i am “der” and you “die”

daddy–

here is the toy

gun. here is the

gas–

aber was ist das?

it is easiest, dada, says

er/sie/es ist

to pretend numbers he logs

are not death certificates in another

country. mother

finds dada still

grease-soaked,

dada cradling his child. she

smiles against the low

hum of tv reeling

another congo war. another american

black, crack headed, ghettoised,

is thrust–

into a police car, cuffs

of lost keys,

and this is another child

gun-firing dada and i from the south

of sudan. we are all

black–

a shard like shrapnel

of fernsehgerät

splinters dada’s eye

and mother, as if it were an intrusive

thought, sweeps

sprays

away a cockroach surviving

the end of black people

on tv–

and dada does not see.

he slips out

of consciousness,

of grease––

a horse beaten.

Half-smoked

i am waiting

to forget. even my watch–

can't tell when

amnesia arrives.

i dissolve

into this harare mbare market.

it's not me

but my shadow

these people

will miss. not my fragrance,

not my face.

so what am i

if not a half-smoked cigarette,

day old

and rain-beaten?

brutalist buildings

stomp me. in the city

everyone is brutus.

i am poor

in people.

how do i sleep

when sleep is

what i am waiting

to forget.