Bafana

Bafana

          Ride the snake.

Farina mentions you 

in a paper about agony

with parts on orality 

               over your head.

Don't wait. Write primers 

     not scripts

—about your town square 

               with toppled 

applecart bathed in rust

—about your life's purpose: 

          eggs in their seats.

You can't be the only

     one in this red hall

          whose parents are 

just as crazy as you:

     Slaves who made

glass mosaics for your nonni 

          washed their

                    work with piss.

"It's all about those hanging

kiosks in the dairy aisle,"

you say. "Hangers with really 

popular books like the Bible,

Patterson, and that book 

                    about Circe"

—who told her mouse 

not to stare at an eclipse.

"Bless her heart, 

how's she hanging?"

Ride the snake, man.

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