Hillbrow 2 Migrant Poems

At Hillbrow, a Zimbabwean girl curls in darkness before a growing night.

She is one of three million Zimbabweans who have to flee to South Africa.

Only her eyes glow in perpetual hunger, her neurones numbed by daily

beatings from her Nigerian master. She is a tree now, other girls from

Kwekwe seem to see her in borderless sunsets beckoning them to come.

In the eyes of another sun she longs to die but not before her earnings

lay in dreamless sleep the drought of lives succumbing slowly. Her mind,

body and tonight, her smile is encrusted on this debt. There is dearth in

dryness, she says in impeccable English, "Can I be your master for tonight,

Sir, I will show you what even the cranial saw wouldn't show after you have

sawed my skull in a bid to understand the cause of my death. I live through

many a death, each one seems to ridicule the other in its severity. Each death

lives through many others like many birds perched at an infinite corner of

a shadeless sky. And as I idly die, I laugh at the vulnerability of your godless

seasons and even at a person like you who have thoughtlessly caught up on

writing about me. You wouldn't believe, I have an honours degree in English.

I tore it to bits after humans tore my humanitarian time. "

She left me finally in neon bright on another strata, swinging her hips towards

a darkness dressed as a car purring in the far corner.

© AMITABH MITRA

*****

AMITABH MITRA is a South African Physician, Poet and a Visual Artist.

Extensively published in the web and print, his short film encompassing

African traditional music, titled 'A Slow Train to Gwalior' and 'Do You

Remember Those Caves at teh Foot of the Fort' has been screened at the

Dubai International and the Durban International Festivals. Amitabh

belongs to Gwalior, India.

More about Amitabh on Wikipedia