(This poem begins and ends with the song “Shosholoza,” a Ndebele folk song that some hail as the “unofficial” or “second” national anthem of South Africa. It was sung by migrant workers in South African mines as a song of resistance and solidarity. The very rough translation is: Moving fast, moving strong, through these mountains like a rolling train to South Africa. You are leaving, you are leaving through these mountains like a rolling train from Zimbabwe.)

SHOSHOLOZA

Shosholoza, ku lezontaba stimela siphume South Africa

Wenu yabaleka, ku lezontaba stimela siphume Zimbabwe

Noor Ebrahim had fifty homing pigeons.

He lived in District Six at the center of Cape Town.

Noor Ebrahim lived with fifty pigeons in District Six

at the center of Cape Town, where there were twelve schools

and the Holy Cross Church and the Aspeling Street Mosque

and the Jews on Harrington Street. With the immigrants and

the natives, the Indians and the Malaya,

the Blacks and the Coloureds. Noor Ebrahim lived with fifty pigeons

in District Six at the center of Cape Town, where there was

Beikinstadt Bookstore and Parker’s corner shop; where you could

buy bread and paraffin for the stove, fish oil, bulls-eyes

and almond rock; where you could walk to the public baths,

pay a ticky, get a fifteen-minute shower, and find yourself between

the gangsters and the businessmen bathing side-by-side, right there,

at the corner of Clifton and Hanover Streets.

Noor Ebrahim lived in District Six at the center of Cape Town.

With fifty pigeons and his family.

Now watch.

Take 1 city: Cape Town.

Divide it into 12 districts.

Now take one of them, District 6,

add 70,000 people over time.

Divide that by the Group Areas Act of 1950

and you wind up with what?

I will give you a hint. It is the same as if you were to divide by race.

So you are left with a remainder of 1 Apartheid Government

and 1 declaration of 1966 which stated that from now on District 6

would be officially recognized as a designated whites-only area.

So, no more Hanover Street with the thick smell of curry

coming from Dout’s café, and no more Janjura’s groceries,

Maxim’s sweeterie, Waynik’s school uniforms, and the sound of

children. Shoppers. Merchants. Buses. Laughter. Song. No.

At the end of all that, you are left with only bulldozers.

Leveled buildings. Razed land. Broken glass and brick.

Not even phantoms will haunt this ghost town,

because even their floating figures are not white enough.

Noor Ebrahim moved the ten kilometers to Athlone.

He packed fifty pigeons into their cages and left District Six

at the center of Cape Town. He left the Peninsula Maternity Home

where hundreds of coloured babies were born every year

and the soda fountain where you could sit and watch the ladies bring

their laundry down to the public washhouse three times a week.

He left his house on Caledon Street.

Noor Ebrahim left his home on Caledon Street in District Six

at the heart of Cape Town and moved the ten kilometers to Athlone.

He lived there for weeks, sometimes driving

past the empty pit of land where District Six no longer stood.

The winds blew hard, and they swept through the dust and the dirt

and the broken glass until every blade of grass bent

beneath the weight of what was no longer there.

After three months, the droppings at the bottom of the birdcages

had become three layers thick. Noor Ebrahim decided it was time

to let the pigeons fly free—fly free so they could find their way back.

He knew that not all of them would return that night.

He knew that the next morning, some of those cages

might not be as full. But he also knew that sometimes gravity

can become a little too comfortable.

So that morning, Noor Ebrahim opened the doors on the cages,

and the winds that swept through Cape Town swept through and

lifted all fifty pigeons up into the air in a cloud of feathers, as if to say,

It does not matter how long we have been kept in cages.

It does not matter how strong your gravity is.

We were always meant to fly.

That night, Noor Ebrahim returned from work.

He turned off the car, went around to the back of the house, and

cried out in pain. Not a single bird had come back to him.

The cages were lined with droppings and feathers, but no pigeons.

The man who had watched them level his house to the ground

without shedding a single tear, now felt his mind go cloudy and his

ribcage felt as empty as the ones the birds had abandoned.

He got back into the car to take a drive and clear his mind.

As he drove down the long streets of Cape Town,

the wheel moved beneath his hands and he found himself

on the abandoned roads of District Six.

As he reached Caledon Street, Noor Ebrahim slowed to a stop.

Because there on the empty plot of land where his house once stood,

were pigeons. All fifty of them.

Standing amongst the dust and the dirt and the broken glass,

looking up at him as if to say, Where is our home?

South Africa. We sing a song of strength.

We go on like a rolling train forever.

We never let gravity become too familiar.

Because we were always meant to fly.

Shosholoza, ku lezontaba stimela siphume South Africa

Wenu yabaleka, ku lezontaba stimela siphume Zimbabwe

INDIA TRIO

I.

Outside my window, through the orange drapes,

I can see a light on in the building facing mine.

It is late now, an hour past when well-behaved

citizens will have gone to sleep.

Who finds themselves restless in this

perfect heat? Perhaps it is two people, lying

next to each other on the mattress, sheets

thrown to the ground, knotted on the floor.

It is too hot for lovemaking. Too hot even

for touching. No, I am sure they have both just

been lying there awake, sweating into their

pillows, breathing in the muggy darkness, both

hands placed by their sides, fingers spread

open. They have both been lying still, one

of them desperately trying to fall asleep, the

other measuring the distance between their

fingertips, waiting until the humidity becomes

too wet, the fire on the skin too near; waiting

until this moment to turn on the bedside lamp.

Deciding finally, to honor this kind of arousal

with something other than breath.

II.

Most days, waking is the hardest.

But it is also when Poetry arrives—

stands patiently outside the shower,

places its hands on the mirror,

wipes away the steam.

And then there are days when

sleeping is the hardest. The fight

of muscle against world becomes

so constant, that surrendering

to slumber doesn’t promise

nearly enough relief. These are

the times when hands feel nothing

but empty. These are the times

when the ceiling fan is left off.

When this heat becomes the only lover

to hold, the only weight

that feels familiar anymore.

III.

Tonight, I raised my hand to my face

to brush away an untamed curl of hair,

and when it slid past my nose, it smelled

suddenly of you. Not your cologne, or

the soap you use, not shampoo or aftershave.

That skinsmell I find tucked into your

neckplace—that late afternoon nap’s shadow

that rises and falls, rises and falls against

my sheets, leaving traces of you in every

pillowcase. I held very still and closed

my eyes, trying to keep whatever particles

of you I managed to steal, until even my

inhale meant losing you. So then I didn’t

breathe at all, just held my hand against my

cheek, and for a moment, felt that it was you.

JETLAG

My pendulum has swung so far past its point,

it has gotten wrapped around me, throws

me back and forth from my own neck.

My pupils are the bottoms of exclamation points.

I am so tired I can only come up

with words in small bursts of: Water.

Stewardess. Peanuts. Aisle. Magazine.

The turbulence hits and someone has turned

on the washing machine in my skull. The

woman across the aisle has started praying.

I see her mouth: Please let me get home.

Please let me get home safe.

How fast does a body fall

when it is not yet in its own time zone?

Where did I leave summer? Is my passport

still strapped to my ribs? How fast can I swim

with a tin can plane tied to my ankle?

Captain. Speaking. Sorry.

Fasten. Seatbelt. Change. Cabin. Pressure.

Please. Home. Please. Home. Safe.

The ground is a letter I mailed days ago.

Someone must have it by now.

What was the last thing I said on the phone?

Was it, I love you? Was it, I’ll see you soon?

PAWS

Inspired by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz’s “Hound”

The third time your plane is delayed,

your voice on the phone has melted to a whimper.

I don’t know when we’ll take off,

you say. I’m going back to the desk to ask.

All day, you have been sending me text messages

of puppy love. I can’t wait to kiss you.

I miss the nook of your neck. How strange,

that when you are away, I reach for my

cell phone’s buzz as if it were your hand.

Each shiver in my pocket, a way to find you.

I will see you soon, Love, this morning’s text promised.

And yet now it is night, and you are still lost

in an airport somewhere in Florida, and I am still here,

trying to comfort you through this phone.

I’m okay, you promise. I just wish I was home.

You sigh into the speaker. The static crackles.

In November, a doctor put your dog to sleep.

You didn’t tell me it had happened for the whole day,

because you didn’t want me to worry or be upset.

I didn’t find out until your parents told me, and I reached

for your hand, not knowing what else to do.

I have never had a pet, I do not know this kind of loss.

The quiet of your kitchen does not sound empty to me,

I cannot hear the missing padding of paws on tiles,

the missing pant and rumble of her belly. But the first few times

you came home that week, I did see the way you opened

the front door: the extra moment you waited, the way

your shoulders sank. She was old, you told me.

She didn’t get around like she used to. She didn’t

even jump up when people came in, didn’t run to

bark and greet me at the door. But she was here.

At least I knew she would be here when I got home.

Recently, there have been more airports for the both

of us. Different suitcases and baggage claims, different

time zones and phone calls. My friends roll their eyes

at me when we are out to coffee, and I keep jumping

for my phone. We know, they say. You “have to take

this.” I apologize, excuse myself, check to see that

you are there. Nobody else notices how naked my

hands look. Nobody else thinks the space between

my chin and shoulder seems oddly empty. But I know

what this should feel like. I know what is missing.

At least the buzz of my cell phone fills the quiet.

For now, it will have to do. Until it can be replaced

by the sound of your padding feet and heavy breath,

by the sight of you in the doorway, exhausted and worn,

but finally, finally home.

THE SHIRT

The night I slept over, you lent me your shirt.

When I wore it out of the bathroom, you laughed

and said, Oh, well. Now it’s yours.

I did not understand what you meant

but you insisted I keep it, so the first couple of nights

I wore it like a puddle, splashed through it,

trying to remember how the rain had felt.

When that failed, I found a photograph

of oranges and punched in the glass.

I stretched your shirt across the wood frame, made it a canvas.

I tried to paint swans, but I’m not a very good painter.

They look more like turtles on a bad hair day.

The next night I hung it on the flagpole and tried to signal the gods.

I don’t think the gods read flags. That would make sense.

I made a hammock and tried to rest inside it,

but I may have stretched it out with all my wriggling.

I tossed it in the laundry with the other clothes

and the colors ran, it looks different than it did before.

The next time I saw you, I was embarrassed.

I had tried to make it into something beautiful,

I had done my best to find something new to show you.

You laughed again, your popcorn laugh,

and said, You don’t have to make it into anything.

And I didn’t understand, so you said,

Does it fit?

I said, Yes.

Then just wear it, silly.

BOOM

This is what fireworks underwater feels like. Making out while eating Pop Rocks. Dynamite in a tin can, this is that time you left the popcorn in too long. There is a rodeo going on in your stomach, someone has started a pillow fight, and there are feathers everywhere. Eating cereal with no milk. Bumble bees in the dining room. Lightbulb wars. Someone is playing electric air guitar with the amp turned way up. Tongue on a battery. Socket sex. Lightning confetti. Ice cube Jawbreakers. Tinder lust.

GRACE

I woke up this morning and said thank you.

To the ceiling, the bedsheets, the mirror, the windows.

To whomever was listening—

For the softly swaying hammock, the salt air,

the clouds that rolled in while I wasn’t watching,

the sounds of someone starting a fire nearby,

the smell of a man’s body, the sound of his sleepy baritone

from within the chest I pressed my head against—

the way his heart beat out of time with his quiet singing,

and his breath came out of time with both—

for the damp grass below us, and the swinging door

of the outdoor shower, for the goosebumps on his skin

from the darkling evening, for his patient arms around me

and the weight of him against me, and for the softly swaying

hammock, somehow large enough to carry all of this.