Deep in the diaspora
I have a magic mirror
Where I can conjure myself back to the home
That I left in a hurry a decade or so ago
And have never set foot in again –
But that is not a story for this poem
Deep in the diaspora
I have become a magician
The mirror my window
Where I shape-shift and
Grow wings
That fly over the vast ocean
And take me back to the land of my birth
I walk the streets of the township
I listen to gossip over the fence
I visit the bottle store
I wait at the traffic lights
I joke with the touts
And like a sardine
Squeeze into the crowded kombi
For the ride to the city center of the land of my birth
Past the police roadblocks,
Where traffic cops wink like ladies of the night
And hold out open palms,
I am a storyteller
The blank page is my mirror
Where I see, feel and be everything
Christopher Mlalazi a writer from Zimbabwe and the author of the three novels, Running With Mother (2012) which has been translated into German, Italian, and Spanish, They Are Coming (2014), The Border Jumper (2019), and the short story collection Dancing With Life: Tales From the Township (2008). He is the co-winner of the 2008 Oxfam/Novib PEN Freedom of Expression Award for the play The Crocodile of Zambezi, and an alumni of the Caine Prize Workshop, International Writing Program (IWP), Nordik-Africa Institute (Sweden), Casa Refugio (Mexico City), and a former Feuchtwanger fellow (USA) and Hannah-Ardent Scholar (Germany). His forthcoming speculative fiction novel, LANGABI, will be published by Jacana Media (South Africa) at the end of 2022.