Drought
By Tsitsi Ella Jaji
It is so goddamn hot in our country that blooms
—jacarandas, bougainvilleas, flamboyants—
erupt in a shock of fuchsia from pipes laced with rust.
Hokoyo! Step too close and your skin will crisp up like a chicken in hot Olivine.
Everyone will see the fat sizzling from your innards.
It is so hot that locusts
drop in pools around your feet,
their musical legs all melted.
In our nation a waterfall is a cauldron of steaming falsehoods.
S m o k e t h u n d e r s …
Maize simply withers in
the miserly shade of thorns.
Men quiver at cock’s crow and
hang their cattle out to dry.
Pumpkins turn to gourds.
Midnight flushes out hunger.
Ngozi dart in disregard
across the oozing tar.
Ach man, spare us your sermons
concerning our weeknight brews:
the problem we are facing now
is the drunkard who drains
his own water pot, leaving
the mother of his children
with one thing only:
pure grit.
Rhinos are shrinking
Filthy crawfish bloat.
Our grandmother is just seated
as if death were a bus running late.
We have now reached the stage
where lackeys are openly trafficking
dragon fruit, smuggling them through
customs as if they were Marange diamonds.
Meanwhile, at the small house,
their scrawny young girlfriends
are just hassling the houseboys.
Our eyes run
all through October,
slash-and-burnt
like rhizomes.
We hear the drum’s skin
crackling as it curls.
We smell the coming rain.
Archangel, your time draws near.
Copyright Credit: Tsitsi Ella Jaji, "Drought" from Beating the Graves. Copyright © 2017 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Press. Reprinted by permission of University of Nebraska Press.
Source: Beating the Graves (University of Nebraska Press, 2017)