Dung beetles, dragon flies, and millipedes are the
last to remember our home.
Stretches of salt plains, sun scorched with vengeance.
The cattle herders head the opposite direction.
The shepherd boys don’t go chasing lambs that stumble
upon our fallen fences.
Have they forgotten the wise weathered hands that raised us?
How grandmother sheltered us beneath the shadow of her otjikaiva
on hot summer days.
Her teasing tongue wrapped in generosity.
The warm milk they drank from her chipped metal cups before passing through our yard.
Have they forgotten Kaomo’s firm but kind nature?
How his lateral canthal lines each bore a life before our time.
Have the children forgotten the waterhole?
Where bat ticks clang to our skin.
Where we inherited scratches that would one day turn to scars,
or is the scrawny child with chapped lips and a belly too swell
for her good a distant memory now?
Does Aminus still mourn us?
Did the land weep when my grandparents died?
Did Pos elf know that burying them would be burying
our anamnesis too?
Is that why our dwelling collapsed like dry hot sand between
our fingers?
No evidence to prove we ever lived,
just whispers from the trees that still stand.
Is this the way of the ancestors?
Are we to return to the earth without leaving a mark?
Is this why my brother found relief from the kiss of a bullet to his temple?
Is this why my sister and I have grown regions apart?
The sandy winds are still silent in their mourning.
O, how cruel a fate to be abandoned by the salt plains of Animus.
Vekondjisa Nosipho Katusuva is a poet and open mic performer, as well as a recent graduate of The University of Science and Technology, with a bachelor’s degree in English and Linguistics. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.