We took it in
a schlock flick shot
in Namibia
all over Namibia. As if
her vast place fit a thimble
I loved it; it was horrible
exquisite for red mirages,
for guns climbing stairs
at Kolmanskop and blood,
blood everywhere.
Certainly a surprise,
the heroine survives
but it’s not her, just her body
appropriated by the drifter,
who was once a Texan
sans duster, which he appropriated
from Sergio.
Sealing her fate, she blew his head off
as he stepped over Niemand’s stick
with passionate declaration,
“Wendy, I love you!”
At least her husband
did not get away with it!
Yet horror lingers under tables
in back-room deals and fishing quotas.
Note: “Namib” is Khoekhoegowab for “vast place”. Dust Devil (1992) is a film written and directed by Richard Stanley.
Don Stevenson is an American poet, writer, graphic designer, artist, and a member of the Windhoek Writers Club. With his family he made a home in Namibia in 1981. His illustrated children’s book, The Wonderlamp, was published in that year. Ancestors and Other Visitors, an anthology of poetry and drawings, was published in 2018.