Times and places
My
mother said, “Don’t look me in the eye! A well-brought girl never does.”
My
mother said, “You must learn to cook and clean! “It is your right.”
My
mother said, “You must get married and have children! They complete you.
My
mother said, “The printed page is a must! You can’t succeed without it.”
My
mother said, “You must greet people around you! You will always need them.”
These
values I carried with me on my journey;
not burdensome but a guide to chart my course.
And
they served me well in that time and place.
But
alas!
Crossing
borders and the threshold of womanhood to bringing forth,
they are challenged.
I am
told only liars can’t look you in the eye!
Women are no longer cleaners!
Men are unnecessary essentials and having
children is a choice!
Listening
to the book is the way to succeed!
You
are all sufficient in yourself. Greeting demeans you!
And
my children; crossbreed of divergent times and place
Are
caught in the interplay
I
can only point to the course I charted in the middle of the two.
The taxpayer speaks
The
door opened with a push from feeble hands
Eyes
like daggers drawn looked towards it,
taking
in the fact that this is a stranger.
You can smell them a mile away.
Questions
are fired off without waiting for answers.
“Where
are you from?”
“When did you arrive here?”
“When are you going back?”
Only
the last answer made sense.
“Soon”, said the head
bowed down in shame for a crime unaware of.
“It
better be! Stop wasting taxpayers’ money!
Adebola Fawole was born in Nigeria and moved to South Africa
in 2007. She is currently enrolled as a PhD student in the Department of
Translation Studies and Linguistics of the University of Limpopo. Before this,
she taught English language and arts and culture in a Pretorian high school.
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