|
Winner,
Chapter One Promotions Open Poetry Competition, 2005 (link)
Still Waiting
Christmas came to
Chililabombwe,
a
misdirected card; Scrooge and frost
delivered
to the wrong continent.
In
the fan-cooled haven of the school reception,
a
bosomy secretary, head shaved of lice,
spooned
excretions from the playground’s termite mound.
A
red paste pile—
African
caviar posed in a napkin.
Close
by a mother and I seemed uneasy.
She
slid one ebony gloss shin
over
the other like a deaf cricket.
She
was lost for good words.
Whatever
she said it would sound stupid, she knew,
but
she would say it anyway — fish eyed
like
the kapenta threaded with small bones
that
she could afford on Fridays.
“It
was that saint man what was he called
Saint
Claws? Santo Claws?
You
know — he’s the one that goes down the chimneys.”
Chimneys?
Every year, white bearded and hot
he
would visit the school, waving,
his
costume the same flame tree hue as the fire engine,
from
which he hung in the sun of blue heat,
banana,
jacaranda and rattling black seedpods.
“But
on that Christmas night, he goes to the other kids —
always
to the other kids.
For
each of my boy’s eight years we waited.
We
listened for the Santo Claws bells,
but
only heard the crickets and frogs of Africa.”
Graham Burchell
|
