Ignore the temptation to acknowledge that as you grow older, the country’s thorns grow younger. Live like a bird. Do not think of the future.

Once my life was brilliant with you in it

Dear Levi,

Four weeks ago, I buried my bracelet, my ring, and my baby.

When the sun came back/ I was a full tree/with all the room in the desert to grow,

I hope when they take my picture/I am filtered with bright exposure

The sun shone brightly as if the ancestors themselves smiled upon the day.

Stigmata on his hands/ a needle in his vein

When the Black man ruled this land, things were very different. You see, me, I’m the brother of the wind; I am the altered destiny.’

The Quality of Mercy is one of the finest books from Africa, and with it, Siphiwe has positioned herself as an important [African] writer

A small portion of your wings / Housefly, lies here before my eyes.

Here eats young and old.

As soon as the smoke dispersed, a gorgeous woman with glowing dark skin was standing there.

We become our parents’ dreams. / We must now find a way to be free.

Maybe these streets swallow us whole

She sighed. “Everything grows here,” she said, pulling out more weeds. “If it’s strong, it lives. If not, then it dies.”

She leaped from her window and became a swarm of bats.

Last night, she came into the world of my dreams and rocked it upside down. She was all of splendour and beauty.

You hum the words of the poem again and again to the boy, smoothing his hair over and over as you do so. Already, you know that there is no more sleep tonight. You know this is where you will lie till the sun shines through those dancing curtains.

and the girls all carry something common in their dirge/

These men all knelt between their thighs.

The first time I saw the devil, I was four and didn’t quite make sense of what I saw. The second time I saw him, I was a year older and more articulate, but it was only for a fleeting second.