grief finds flight

There is no time for grief
In this fight
But the grief wells up
Overflows

She must grow into something else

Through our bodies
She finds flight

I wonder what bird she will become?

I wonder where her feathers,
As they grow into our arms,
Will take us?

For the guns

The guns crawled out of themselves
They left their metal carcasses
Like that student struggled out of his coat
As the policemen wrestled him

He escaped
Black
Black
Into the night

The police were left
With the ghost of the coat
Still asking them
‘what did I do?’

The guns heard
They crawled out of themselves
Leaving the police with their metal carcasses

They slipped into the throat
Of the student
In the head wrap

They thought they would find food
In her rage

This is what they are used to being fed on

Instead they found themselves
Abandoned
Even by her

Caught in the web of the question
She kept asking the policemen

“How can you not see that you are killing your child?”

The guns wept
Because policemen couldn't weep


- written in the aftermath of the police violence at the UJ Night Vigil on the 13th November 2015.
See

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3qiXOXgpwM