There is Something I Know [excerpt]

In this funky sex-smelling town,

runner-away girls trade their bodies with overweight men:

truck drivers, bus drivers

and scarred men with prison tattoos

they trade their bodies

with an army of Pakistani, Nigerian, Congolese and Ethiopian men

whose peckers can’t wait for the wives left behind

or hidden from the public

or horded like grains in sacks, 

in Islamabad and Karachi,

in Abuja and Lagos,

in Addis Ababa and Gondar.   

Tipsy girls sell their thighs and breasts,

for overnight sleep and gawula,

for djedje, magwinya and kota, 

for isiqghebhezane and delela fashion,

for jewelry and branded sneakers,  

thighs are pressed, pushed and shoved like laundry by hungry lions

whose wireless fidelity is always connected,

countless men to count with fingers 

and match sticks 

have, like locusts, a field day

sinking hoes, 

in, out,

sideways,

reeking with liquor,

some with garlic and berbere,

some smelling like stinky tofu,

in, out,

sideways,

exchanging bodily fluids,

sharing herpes, clap, gonorrhea and HIV,

in, out,

sideways,

sharing the stale bread of death,

for organs of bliss have become destructive bombs

that shatter the poor 

in shacks, villages and townships

here in the streets of Polokwane

here in Mzansi for shit.

I know of silent screams

of the raped and bruised girls 

with hare-like alert ears

dumped in the bushes 

or thrown in the streams

like stray dead dogs to feed the crocs, 

girls locked and chained 

in damped and bleak rooms to die 

chained for loitering in the night 

while the drunken night police 

who think and cough with their dicks

demand cash

and fuck for free

to let them have peace

to let girls walk with ease 

naked in town 

breasts heaving, bare backs, oiled buttocks

dry buttocks

lingerie flip-flopping in the streets,

mapunapuna  (stark naked)

counting stab wounds,  

twerking

yet a piece of heart is shredded into pieces.

There is something I know about this town

girls are dragged to inhale lizards and fumes 

to numb the deepest pain cutting through their hearts,

dejected girls in dark and lifeless streets:

girls crouched around galley fires

girls in skimpy wear and bikinis, 

girls perched wide-legged 

on plastic chairs on verandahs of old houses with flaked paint, 

girls in shorts and gowns 

in wigs and stomach-outs 

flagging passer-by motorists 

girls smoking vapour and nyaope in Marshal street

positioned at fences, 

on a sidewalk

mattresses scattered in a dilapidated garage,

girls hiding among shrubs on the N1, 

clothed in t-shirts

or silky night gowns

or nothing at all

mattresses shaking under a jacaranda tree,

or on cardboard boxes 

behind the power box on the street,

pimps, eagles of shame keeping a watchful eye 

as girls alternate between vehicles 

slipping onto the seats of a bombastic estate car

with a GP registration number

driving off

but 

to where?

Go home Tebza,

home is bundu Bochum, 

your hapless and fast-ageing mother’s pillow 

is soaked with tears, 

dejected daddy died of heart attack –

he was tired of bearing the brunt “father of a whore, 

father of makgosha”

Tebza, I know it’s a mission to return home,

but why do you choose to die in town,

in a lonely shack,

alone?

You say selling your body,

is your biggest business plan,

that doesn’t require Economics 101,

all you want to die known for is

entertaining drunk gangsters 

loitering aimlessly in the streets

than sell bananas and tomatoes in the village,

or work on farms,

plant seeds and irrigate crops,

or fell and sell firewood,

or pick mopani worms, feed the babies, 

sell some masonja to makarapa,

or work in homes of teachers and nurses,

do laundry, cook meals for children and their diapers – 

earn a pittance 

(and steal teabags and sugar; soap, some rice and tinned fish).

Tebza,

you say you were not born to be a housewife,

do all these shitty chores,

and later contract HIV/Aids

from a cheating dog called a husband 

who doesn’t even give you enough cash –

that girlfriend allowance,

the useless hubby who looks away in bed

when you really need a man

to cuddle,

stroke your back …

you say you were not born for 

the man with no fire between his loins

II

There is something I know about this town 

of thuggery:

month end, eish san, eish san

at night, yoo! yoo!

Thugs place a fake body on the road,

a log dressed in a blue flashing work suit,

a driver stops to help this guy supposedly high on nyaope 

or simply too drunk, 

suddenly a swarm of two-footed horseflies emerge from the bushes,

under the bridge, 

wielding sharp knives and pangas,

brandishing handguns and rifles,

horseflies in black balaclavas and white hand gloves,

demand car keys.

They take away your wallet and smart phone,

stuff you in the boot of your fancy car,

drive to the nearest ATM located in the dark outskirts of town,

then they hit your head so hard with a gun butt, 

flickering stars dance,

“give us your bank card, pin number nyopfi ndzi wena!”

Then they swipe away all your cash,

the ATM goes trrrrrrrrrr, trrrrrrrrr!

your head goes grrrrr, grrrr!

then they leave the N1, drive on a bumpy gravel road

towards Solomondale,

then they stop the car,

drag you out like a stray dog

drenched with sweat,

they fire three shots in the air,

next time you hitch-hike, we’ll slit your long throat, 

or crush your head with a four pounds hammer,

or sting your heart with a burning bullet,

then you forget about pap and vleis,

forget about sex workers in Dahl Street,

you know there’s no braai 

and booze when the heart stops beating,

horseflies laugh out loud like ghosts, 

spit and urinate over your body,

shout, voetsek inja!

They leave you in the wilderness of laughing hyenas,

shuffling steps by the roadside 

drained naked man with bowed shoulders

not knowing where south or north,

east or west is,

the patrol police notice a silhouette under the moonshine,

wheels of their van screech,

lights flicker,

agh shame

they drive you back to Elim,

your children weep nonstop

because in just a few hours

 you have lost several kilograms of weight,

hair is like a ruffled bird’s crest.  

“Open a criminal case,” everyone urges you,

you decide to take a long bath,

nursing and rubbing pains of walking in the night,

the heart beats so fast.