by Darryl Williams

It is all self-excoriation.
The downtrodden plight,
the irrevocable moment of commotion,
and the contrast
as everything is formally divided
into apolitical black and white.
Once the floodgates open,
the order will fade into a thrumming slur of standstill.
Plundered buildings won’t be pruned back to life.
Neither will the house we never built.
Memory banks will be burgeoned
in what it means to breathe.
There will be some raised fists.
Martin will be shot, once again,
and it will be proclaimed
as philosophical.
The constitutions’ cadence will eventually fade into myth,
before it is rewritten on the backside of a dog-eared food stamp.
Politics will become drunkenly long-armed
and heavy-tongued.
The man will continue to hold back your pay.
Women will be raped during the day.
Shadows will resolve themselves
into refractive experiences.
And on a back road somewhere
in this incensed inkling of a country,
our remains will be transposed
into a dying leaf,
that reeks of earth after rain.
A fragrant, hymnal declaration
as our eyes meet
the dawn.

Daryll Williams was born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa.