Here Is A Gertrude Sneeze Number Four Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

As the inferno goes higher,
My mother has taken her in-law
To court for she was haunting
My father, asking for money
Every weekend and crying on
On the window outside our house
For the money is not ours,
But her father Isaac's.

She prayed to the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob for they knew
That she is the eldest and should
Be listened to when she is in need.

'I made you the financial heir
And if you listen to these young
Girls whom you dated one week and
Married the next, you will surely
Receive the wrath of our Holy God.
I tell you, for the truth sits
On the lips of turtles for they
Grow to be centenarians.'

My father ought to listen to my aunt,
For she has said she is not a surrogate
Mother of his to be coming to him to
Ask for money that belongs to all of
Isaac's children, but his sister
Who carried them all on her back
And could run a mile, for that
Is how young they are and uninformed
About ruling the family.

A man who has a wife is not to be
Reminded of his baby hood if he
Does his duties. But men like my father
Are a problem for they never grow up.
Her ranting annoys us, but it makes
Our life, now that we have grown up
To know, that it is what she lives for.

My mother has asked her to stop
Coming to our house, and she says
No police order will stop her from
Coming to the home of Isaac for it
Was built with the one cow her husband
Paid as the bride price. There was no
Court, she argues when those agreements
Were made. She speaks rules from the
Shrine of the clan and nobody can do
Anything about that, without seeing
Isaac 'emanate' from the bush like
The cyclone that drowned all our cattle
When they refused to slaughter a cow
On her sixtieth birthday.

I have seen that the bag of tricks
Is Running out for my aunt has said
My uncle should be in charge of the
Family finances and not my father.
Now it is going into divide, rule
And confuse. Ha! Ha!