So that’s where it’s been:
locked away in this track.
Once overplayed,
then forgotten.
See our young faces
as they were:
spectres amidst reeds of
the instantly familiar piano.
I had so much to learn
about hurting you.
I see you scar-free, playfully
peeking through the mournful violin.
I’d be dead to the man I see
adoring you in the ethereal vocals.
Meandering through our early days,
lost in songs.
Dawn spills renewed promise
somehow spun from vapour
though sleep
Something seems different
though nothing has changed
Your ear on my chest
We lie fresh in our stale air
Our limbs comfortably
intertwined
My heart beats like pop
A jukebox of hits
thought lost
Then
the sheets yet again
shaken out and laid straight
Corner finding corner
My English pleas:
dead butterflies on an Afrikaans desk.
Van Der Walt gestured for me to select a cane.
Or should we make it three?
His dastardly crew of hitmen,
clipped into a glass-doored cabinet:
mean and thin through to thuggish and thick.
Spoiled for choice, hey?
These men are gone;
their accurate arms and wrists,
dust, bones and ash.
Swish! Swish!
Their canes are just sticks,
preserved by lacquer
and a sadist’s dead love.
Don’t let me see you here again!
