whose names she debated over and over,
Googled, wondering what light
Their weight would bring to the world?
Names of those she loved without seeing
Whose handshake she will never experience
How does she take away a name she whispered,
Entrusted to the wind to carry and return to her bosom?
Say she even smiled, thinking about what they would do
They would tug at her skirts everywhere she went
Say she planned which pre-school they would go to;
Which university she would afford for them
Say she imagined their wedding day,
Holding their hand to finally give
Them away
How does she un-dream this lump of love
A flame sitting and burning her grieving womb?
Also by this poet:
Batsirai Chigama (Zimbabwe) is a performer, poet, literary activist, and social commentator. City of Asylum described her work as “surprising, shocking, and skillfully deliberate work,” and “a breath-taking embodiment of grief.”
Chigama’s debut collection, “Gather The Children,” won Outstanding First Creative Published Book at the National Arts Merit Awards in 2019. In the same year she was an honorary fellow at the International Writing Programme (IWP) at Iowa University. In 2021 she released her second poetry collection which won the NAMA Outstanding Poetry Book Award in 2022.
Batsirai is passionate about providing alternative narratives to those featured in mainstream media and her work with young people has taken her as far as Denmark and USA, performing and facilitating creative writing and spoken word workshops.