by Deon-Simphiwe Rakaku
I can hear her voice wail
like an impatient church bell
it echoes in stately shrills
lack of restraint
casts her into the darkness of fears
“Be a man! Be a man, Joe!” she had demanded of me
as if she knew what she meant
as if she herself was a man
but since I had studied her ways
her innermost self
i had run away from her demands
her command of things she knew nothing about
i have been on the run since then
running towards becoming my own man
and when the bell rings now
i discover a new form of cynicism towards stately things