(For Don, 2024, Rest in Peace)
In memory of a young man who hung on a tree at the side of a highway in Gweru, Zimbabwe, 2023.
I’m broken bones
Bottled like wine
I’m skin with holes
Rancid and cold
I’m bitter black fruit
Rotten from the root
I’m a mind let loose
Like a rabbit in a field
I’m the sight of your failure
Swinging like a child.
You want to mourn me? Did you know me?
You feel like crying? It’s too late for tears
You want to hold my hand? But touches elude me
You will remember my name? Time will tell
It was a fucked up life, let me not lie!
Also by this poet:
Beverley Ann Abrahams is a Zimbabwean poet and short story writer, a teacher of English for 40 years, and an activist against gender-based violence with DD4P, Daughter Destined For Purpose, a UK based charity organisation in Zimbabwe.. She has been published in three anthologies of international poets and one regional anthology of female human rights defenders. She is published in three anthologies of African short stories; and was second runner-up for the Kendeka prize for African Literature in 2022. In 2024 she was short-listed for the inaugural Carnelian Heart (UK) short story prize and the Intwasa Yvonne Vera Award. In December 2024, her poem “Broken Teeth” (Ipikai issue 5) was published in “Dambudzo Marechera At The Old Fire Station” by Oxford Brookes University.
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