Leaving Home by Rethabile Masilo | Poems Rethabile Likes
Leaving home
by Rethabile Masilo
The slow, soft rain beats on the head of my last days
in Maseru, my mother and I sit across the table
talking about another year. There is no animosity
toward nature, as there was none against the sun
of a few days before. We have forgiven. We said it
out loud while looking at each other: "We forgive".
I think of sanity, in light emanating from her eyes.
When I gaze out the window all I see is tomorrow,
when this rain will be gone and the sun, too, stars
which spent last night falling, as if this day needed
fireworks. No, tomorrow must come. It is day turned
upside down to show what hides within, a handbag
shaken onto a table and its contents studied. I found
a long lost Parker pen, dried at the nib. I've made a note
to buy a bottle of ink. My mother found a lipstick
she didn't even know she had ever had, and put it
on, our hands searching among old and new objects
in quietness. Somewhere out there water took
a badly placed object, maybe a drum, and rolled it
down the street. A torrent was brewing. I knew
I was searching for what could never be, when you
want to be in two places at the same time. My hand
moved over my mother's and found peace in that.
in Maseru, my mother and I sit across the table
talking about another year. There is no animosity
toward nature, as there was none against the sun
of a few days before. We have forgiven. We said it
out loud while looking at each other: "We forgive".
I think of sanity, in light emanating from her eyes.
When I gaze out the window all I see is tomorrow,
when this rain will be gone and the sun, too, stars
which spent last night falling, as if this day needed
fireworks. No, tomorrow must come. It is day turned
upside down to show what hides within, a handbag
shaken onto a table and its contents studied. I found
a long lost Parker pen, dried at the nib. I've made a note
to buy a bottle of ink. My mother found a lipstick
she didn't even know she had ever had, and put it
on, our hands searching among old and new objects
in quietness. Somewhere out there water took
a badly placed object, maybe a drum, and rolled it
down the street. A torrent was brewing. I knew
I was searching for what could never be, when you
want to be in two places at the same time. My hand
moved over my mother's and found peace in that.
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