Member Poem

*[this poem is about a domestic worker from South Africa crossing back home into Zimbabwe on a cheap bus used by poorer citizens]*

She clasps her hands and sleeps

Head nodding on her chest

Slow and gentle snores

As she takes this moments rest

Because she’s so awfully tired

So beaten down and drained

But nobody really cares

About her life and about her pain

And she no longer has a dream

No goals for which to strive

Because she’s spent too long just surviving

In this heartless human hive

She’s sick right now with flu

And has been for days

But there is no doctor where she lives

And if there was, she couldn’t pay

And she hasn’t seen her children

For six long and brutal months

As she rears someone else’s

Cooks them dinners and makes them lunch

Her life has been so listless

So disappointing and incomplete

As she washes clothes and dishes

Whilst wishing she could read

And her hands are calloused raw

From scrubbing rich men’s floors

Countless hours on her knees

Doing wealthy people’s chores

And she’s trying to do her best

With the little that she earns

But it really isn’t much

There’s so much for which she yearns

In fact, she has barely anything to show

For her last few years of toil

As she sends everything she makes

Back home because she’s loyal

And now the little that she’s saved

Is being used up with every mile

As the slow and lonely bus

Grinds along in single file

Carrying her home to see her family

For the first time since she left

Crossing callous white man’s borders

That have left her so empty and bereft

And at the moment our paths cross

On this barren stretch of road

She suddenly awakes

And for a second time is slowed

As our eyes briefly meet

Then force our gaze to hold

And in that trembling clarity

I can see her life unfold

I can feel the pain she carries

Even though our lives are so far apart

Because in that instant I just know

That she bears a heavy heart

For I can see the deep sorrow

That she holds within her soul

From a hard and servile life

Over which she has never had control

And for a moment I realize

Just how atrociously unfair

This apathetic world can be

On those who have no share

Because now my eyes have been forced open

And forever etched into my mind

Is a completely different life

To which I have always been so blind

And then the bus screams past

And with it, so does she

Leaving a burning silhouette

That will forever haunt me…