The slaughterhouse speaks to the poet

Melissa Sussens

You have been inside me,

though neither of us were given a choice.

You know how white I am within. You know

how much I love to shine, how I glow

when I am as spotless as a polished gun.

Do you think they chose my red brick exterior

on purpose? Is it meant to camouflage

the truth of the life I have drained

away? When I have only the chilled

carcasses and the cold night

air for company, I exhale. Don’t feign

surprise. You must know I hold

my breath for blood. We are the same,

you and I. Both architects of death.

I am of superior design, I will outlast

you. You, who name yourself kind

while wielding words as blade.

Do not blink as you gut the truth,

exhume the body of memory. Call me loss,

call me graveyard for carnage, call me home

to the murdered. It does not matter. Death takes

getting used to. I see the way it feeds

you. Now, reach for paper before comfort settles

in, dissect me over and over on the page.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 20 October 2022

Dawning

Brian Walter

I’ve read all the night – now dawn

has lit the east – with little sound

through the dark to disquieten me,

only the last whispers of the rains

or an artless eavesdropping of thought:

I renounced all hope of sleep.

She’s a strange escort, insomnia.

It is now twilit quiet, and I’m lost

in her arms, reading this restless time

away, back to the old Egyptians,

remembering their old creation mound

of the earliest light. I am so far back

that I almost miss the pointlessness

of our immediate rhythms, stirring –

hoots, and the hiss and clack of shunting trains,

the mind-made world of profit and loss

and the timetables they will sweat to keep.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 13 October 2022

Portrait of a Mother and Indiscretion

Sindiswa Busuku

My mother smells of indiscretion

– in fact she smells of strange

things. Not camphor or ZamBuk;

not of anything familiar.

My mother walks slowly,

crossing the bedroom in high-

heeled shoes. In my grey window

I see the sky. In the sky the moon

is round. She hides her smile

behind the curtain lace and

whispers, “My child sees

everything.”

I’m waiting for her to hang her

winter coat. I am eager to

glimpse her body. Her buttons

fall away. She is kneeling at my

bedside, upright. Her hand on

mine. It’s raining. She is

lipsticked and caressing my face.

The moon is dead. Her hands

don’t feel the same anymore. The

stars have gone out. I turn and

bite her sad hand; she flies

backwards. I am loud and yellow

laughter. I whisper back, “My

mother wears a disguise for my

eyes only.”

My mother is an old woman. She

is no longer young. Yet I smell

her indiscretion. I have smelt it

on her for days. She has been

laughing and smiling without

restraint.

Featured at The Red Wheelbarrow on 4 October 2022