***
“How often he’s tried to touch death”
How often he’s tried to touch death
Caress the cheeks make them familiar
Wipe away flecks of blood
Or crumbs off death’s chin
Perhaps he should shave death’s face
Use lipstick and ear rings make the gender a man
One that prefers intimacy with other men
Not raw sexuality just one whose cheek is pressed
Against his without words without intent
And hear the faint whistle escape death’s lungs
So like
A faraway tunnel a faraway sluicing through branches
A nearby slumbering animal or his own nostrils
Followed by that silence
So like
The final tears of a mother over her stillborn infant
Whose crumpled little face grows dim
Whose face is the receding sunlight on a river
Filled with song inescapable as breath
“I’m broken, crushed, destroyed”
All three words
Exit the same way through these trees
Hollered up from my lungs through the leaves
Deep in these nameless woods
A place which is the perfect emblem for
“The silent terraces of the heart”
And other terms we no longer use
Out of distrust
On the surface the three words seem the same
But I’d rather gather up “crushed”
The smell of crushed leaves and petals
Crushed ice on a hot day poured in lemon juice
Waves crushing the sand as lovers’ wet bodies cling
Oh yes, let this be my prayer
Give me huge jars of the word crushed
“Meditation is truest in the pre-dawn”
Meditation is truest in the pre-dawn
The moon slides down Jacob’s ladder
The stars no longer whisper
Like bits of shimmering porcelain
They put away their playthings crickets
Leaves softening a pond the glint of a distant car
The child in me floats down from the sky
Cleansed by ash lightening my bones
Glad at last to be taken seriously
Ready to cherish today’s half-truths
Yielding (First published in my memoir Cracking China)
When my body brought me news of its coming death,
I thought of the snow that once burst
Silently against our bedroom window.
When my fingers brought me news of their coming death,
I held again my mother’s hands,
Learning, this time, to let them go.
My wife’s body
Has also brought us news of death.
It was not the cough, the fever, that racked her so,
Racked me so,
But the first serrations of cherry blossom
As they chiseled through the bark.
A prince with dignity and determination
Prince Ngarambe’s goals are to become Rwanda’s first transgender model and to uplift the country’s youth
The EFF’s principles are unshakeable
Unlike the ANC, the core values of the freedom fighters do not change with each leader it elects
