Hands Dangling With My Vote In Them Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

Where I come from is marked by mountains,
Of a past that is green with trees that bloom,
Whose summers light up skies with blue and red,
That look at the world as it changes,
Jumping on everybody's unshaven head,
With a face that faces the beginning,
And the end of our time here.
I look back and see the games I played,
Letting time slip through my fingers,
Which caught it and shook it off,
Grabbing this and grabbing that,
Only to find themselves empty,
And all of them inside my mouth,
Dripping with my own memory of a supper,
That once silenced my wailing,
Telling me I am crying for nought.
For to go back cannot bring back,
The losses that have left me like,
The purse of a MaBenzy who lost it all,
When gambling in Monte Carlo,
And returned home to Lagos,
With nothing in her hidden belt,
But an empty stomach that flips
And flops as she treads on up the road,
In her last tired walk.

What is money when it hits us in the face,
And leaves us with tears of what we lost,
When we were gambling with bills,
That were to pay for the poor,
Whose bills remain unpaid,
Yet they voted in the long lines,
For they owe nobody and everybody,
Who held the purse and signed the papers,
That feed countries in exchange rates,
That cannot be used to feed a mouse,
That wants the seed in the vault,
That is kept in the big powerful silos,
That reach the sky with their parapets,
Like medieval churches of old,
Yet squeeze the poor like worms,
That must fry in the unsalted heat,
And revile everyone who sees them,
Crawling on the pot holed roadsides,
Where they sit and beg hands outstretched,
Saying even if you spit into my hands,
That will be precious rain to me,
For the drought has brought me here,
To see if anyone can see the drought
That has me peeling the sores you see,
Which are the only proof I live,
For you spoke to me like a person,
I went and voted for the likes of you.