Body, a poem by Rethabile Masilo

This is the body from which it began many years ago,
one sibling after another; flesh—from flesh
that has found its bed now at last, in
a marbled room rendered silent
by the white company of stone,
the powdered face of past visions,
and arms and hands whose powerful sinew,
whose true slap, is gone, now, from it, like regret
slain, the delicate face of my mother a dream
that comes to me when I sleep, her voice in my liberty,
her fingers curled into fresh meaning and sense, as if
to say: find at this time the will for your own remedy.
I close my life and seek, if only for my children,
her voice that blesses and redeems the pulse of bleating hearts.
I’d present her deeds like a résumé to the guardian
of a gate that we do not know about, scribbled
on black slate, my eyes the reference letter to God,
plus the names of six referees who have known her
from before their flesh had slipped from her flesh,
and she held them against her bosom
or carried them on her back as she worked;
but her job here is done, just retirement is due.
Life started once, and she carried it to your company,
I will tell my children. Bury in you this memory:
after today, when this rain stops and the sun reappears,
nothing forever will be able to dissipate your dark.

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'Me' 'Makananelo Masilo