Just recently we featured some homegrown Zimbabwean poetry penned by Bella Matambanadzo on Kubatana.net. The poem is called The Kanga, Part 1, in response to the Jacob Zuma rape case in South Africa.

Several readers requested a copy of Bella’s poem but unfortunately one of our subscribers in Chiredzi had his email blocked because of “inappropriate language”. Can you imagine how many pubs would be shut down in Zimbabwe if the swear word police came down as hard as the email censors?

Here’s Bella’s poem.

The Kanga: Part 1
Isabella Matambanadzo
August 04, 2006

The girl lay under bedding of felt-soft yellow sheets. The corners were neatly turned down in a nurse’s envelope.

He takes it out
Already dripping

Face up, she felt the leaves of the garden of flowers running in neat rows across her single bed tickling her bare, chubby feet.

Holds it with both hands
As if it will break

She didn’t squeal with delight as girls her age are meant to. She kept very, very still. She did not want to make a mess of her new hair.

His pants, belt around waistband, drop
Plonk.
Upon brown laced up shoes.

Her mother had spent the Sunday afternoon melting her tough curls with a Vaseline and a hot comb, etching out fantastically even cornrows. She was careful.

He calls his mothers name in a grunt
No surprise he is back in the thing that pushed him out.

The smell always reached her first. Filling the follicles of her nostrils and bursting past her tonsils into her mouth. A mucky mingling of heavy mucus and swallowed tears that she pushed back into her stomach.

He pulls it back into checkered underpants, hands apart this time tucks the shirt tails in.
Funny thing, that. How they can always fuck with their shoes and socks on.

That smell. And then there it was. The sound of metal turning hinges. Unrolling wood against a green carpet into puffs of dust dragged to life by turned up trouser ends.

And funnier still how Judges can get away with telling you
that you are the sick one, need help.

This entry was posted on October 16th, 2006 at 1:35 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.