The Lesbian At My Table

There’s a Lesbian at my table.

She sits adjacent to me

and eats the food I make.

She chews well enough –  

with her mouth closed.

She doesn’t swallow too loudly,

Or slurp her drink.

This Lesbian at my table

bides her time by calling me

“Mme”, and seduces me with offerings:

“Nka lo siela tee?” and “Ke tswa go reka kuku e e sukitshana.”

I suppose she has learned well –

she can slip herself past thirsty eyes

and unchaste ears.

I found the Lesbian at my table

where I had left my beloved child.

She seems to have consumed her

like a hungered bird –

waited too long through a rainy night

and awakened to find no morsels

creeping along the moistened earth.

When I sat down for our evening meal

I thought I saw the tassels of booties

I had knitted while swollen

like a mango at summer’s end.

They were yellow like the sun

whose over affectionate kisses had me

too ripe to touch and unforgivingly tender.

 They slid between her lips

as she inhaled to say grace.

I broke bread with the lesbian at the table

and let my thoughts pirouette to

the syncopated clinks of cutlery on porcelain.

I drank her tea and nibbled her sweet cake.

I let her run me a hot bath and

we prayed before saying ‘Night-night’.

Her voice is still tender,

and her laugh unleashes memories

from before funeral processions

and mandatory condolences.

“He was a good man.” “An honourable father.”

Killed by a daughter he’d thought too weak to fight back.

Too obedient to refuse his cure.

Too discreet to scream: Bathong, monna ke yo!

The eyes are now parched

as I break bread with the lesbian at my table.

Walls are never high enough

for intolerance to falter and fall

and perhaps break its sinewy legs.
I keep her home for my safety and her sanity.

I call her Ngwanake.

There is a lesbian at my table.

Of all the things in life I need, This I Knead.

Share With Me.