I forget to look

Gabeba Baderoon

The photograph of my mother at her desk
in the 1950s has been in my purse for twenty years,
its paper faded, browning
and the scalloped edge bent and straightened.

Her poise in the photograph is unmarred.
The collar of her dress is folded discreetly.
The angle of her neck looks as though
someone has called her from far away.

She was the first in her family to take
the bus from Claremont
up the hill to medical school.

At one point during their lectures,
the black students had to pack
their notes and put on their jackets and leave
the theatre so the lecturer could start
an anatomy lesson by cutting
into the skin of a white body.

Behind the closed door, the uncovering
and incision of white skin. Outside, the boundary
of how black and white could look
at each other, touch each other.

Every time I pay for something,
she is there, so familiar I forget
to look at her.



LitNet: 13 December 2005

Have your say! Send your comments to webvoet@litnet.co.za, and become a part of our interactive opinion page. Or submit your own poetry to Michelle McGrane for consideration.

Click here to receive our newsletter - your weekly cultural fix! Check out what's sizzling on our newsletter this week

back    /     to the top

© Kopiereg in die ontwerp en inhoud van hierdie webruimte behoort aan LitNet, uitgesluit die kopiereg in bydraes wat berus by die outeurs wat sodanige bydraes verskaf. LitNet streef na die plasing van oorspronklike materiaal en na die oop en onbeperkte uitruil van idees en menings. Die menings van bydraers tot hierdie werftuiste is dus hul eie en weerspieël nie noodwendig die mening van die redaksie en bestuur van LitNet nie. LitNet kan ongelukkig ook nie waarborg dat hierdie diens ononderbroke of foutloos sal wees nie en gebruikers wat steun op inligting wat hier verskaf word, doen dit op hul eie risiko. Media24, M-Web, Ligitprops 3042 BK en die bestuur en redaksie van LitNet aanvaar derhalwe geen aanspreeklikheid vir enige regstreekse of onregstreekse verlies of skade wat uit sodanige bydraes of die verskaffing van hierdie diens spruit nie. LitNet is ’n onafhanklike joernaal op die Internet, en word as gesamentlike onderneming deur Ligitprops 3042 BK en Media24 bedryf.