Abigail George

The Night has her Own Quiet Victory

–for the Dutch poet Joop Bersee

We came here. Pilgrims. We danced in search of stones. A voice
answered in return. Told us about life and what our purpose was

here on earth. My father was the ragged phoenix. I think of the
wild birds in Kenya. Do they coo wherever they woo? The light

scares me. So do bone-thin women. I know more sin than saint.
You are woman with the graceful neck wearing sackcloth rather

than designer label. I pray that I will write a novel based on the
stories of your life. I also pray that you will never read it. It is

just this volcano lover waiting for death. Just this wait until death
then it is all over. When darkness comes all I want is sweet you.

I have life because I have blood navigating through my veins.
You have the same blood flowing through yours. I never promised

to obey you. I think of how the day has turned out. The calm sea
and the calm river of it all. Songs of the dumped found there forever.

Saturn. Robert Mugabe resigns, loneliness seeps into my
bones highlighting the gathering summer and light in seawater.

The physical world of seawater shimmers. It glitters. It strikes poses.
Courage is powerful in the same way triumph burns, the shape

of leaves, couples on a beach, and the clouds here are full of
enormous knowing. I would have been a bad mother. A bad

feminist. I know this truth in the abyss of my tired bones.
Saturn has done this to me as well as the image of ritual.

This insight transforms itself into light. The light of day and
I still remember the day you walked away from me a free man.

 

Abigail George was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for her fiction, “Wash Away My Sins.” She is a South African blogger at Goodreads, and an essayist, playwright, poet, grant, novella, and short story writer. She briefly studied film at Newtown Film and Television School in Johannesburg.