Maria's Burden

Vonani Bila

The young widow next door
With a furrowed face
Wears a black dress everyday
Neighbours say she lynched her husband in bed
They call her a mental case

She wanders in the long winding road
Heat throbs
Feet blistered
She runs across bridges & ridges
She runs between ditchy shrubs & bushes
Alone, waving at swinging grass & singing birds
The wind howling like owls

Onions & oil don't burn in her kitchen
Electricity cut off
Government delivery pace so slow
Darkness falls upon her veiled face
Cold water burns her bare back
Roaches race through empty cupboards & shelves

Neighbours eat sumptuous food
Pounding good pap & vleis
Gunning down pizza & pasta
Washing down with whisky, rum & wine
Finger-licking honey cake & ice-cream
She downs cheap, bitter tablets
She lives on prayer
Amen

Neighbours bask in the rising sun
Dance to the full moon
Exchange warm kisses & hugs
Watch the glistening stars up in the sky
Maria moans & groans day & night
Dreams scissored to shreds
No child
Six years into unemployment
Nothing glitters in her eyes

Day in, day out
She spins in cycles
Turmoil, like storm, brews & boils inside her mind
A vicious battle rages
Blue flames in the heart
She drowns lower & lower
Pain & ridicule so unbearable
She loved him –
The man who broke her virginity
She loved him –
The wanted scum –
Now he's gone – the conman
Now this deaddogthug dangles on her back
A spook

Maria looks through the window
Caged in a matchbox apartment
She longs to hang
Swing down low from ninth floor
Hubby jumped through the same window
He crushed his skull into pieces
Brain scattered on a concrete ground
He feared deadlife behind bars
He feared the sodomizing gangs
The media say he robbed the bank

Men in balaclavas
Banging the door
Bang, bang, bang!
She quivers
She sees these gun-toting mafia
These rifle-wielding scum
Dum, dum, dum!
She closes her eyes
Vicious men bundle her down like an animal
Pierce through her soft thighs
She screams
Manawee! Manawee!
"YOUR HUSBAND OWES US ZUK"
They yell
& stuff her mouth with a cloth

This heavily indebted woman next door
Can no longer bear this baggage
She sinks lower & lower
Into a swampy mound like a coffin
           Whoever ravaged her peace
           Whoever stole her freedom
           Please, please, please
Bring it back

LitNet: 21 March 2006

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