Nondwe Mpuma
and we fetched them from the airport and home arrived with nightly prayers and steam pudding
and in the evenings my mother cooked pap and vleis and we sat around the stumpy, glass table and watched Animal Farm on SABC News and we threw stones at Napoleon and I passed my grandfather Eight Days in September and with old eyes he read until he had to walk out for a smoke
and night came
and he called utamncane and checked on the cows, and he checked on the sheep and the chickens and his wild horses, and the church list and the goat that had disappeared for three days
and when the beds began to call, my grandmother began uKristu Mkhululi Wethu and our uneven voices were capable of breaking windows and we knelt in thanks to the Almighty and after the Lord’s prayer was sung, grandmother taught my cousin the words to Nkosi Ndithembe Wena
and after “Amen” we answered the beds’ calls.
Featured on 5 August 2021
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