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Nuns
Shelley Davidow

South Africa

GALLERY

CONVERSATION

Where sluggish earthworms squeeze out red mud,
We wake. Across

The wide Zambezi river
A hippo farts and belches up
The river floor
And one exotic
Flying fish.
Your hair is damp
And there is a swipe of blood on your cheek,
I killed the mosquito.
You gather the morning in
And yawn loudly
The hippo ducks.

A strange sound of churchy music
Drifts across the river
And you say

‘Nuns.’
In Africa? On the wild elephant
Banks of the Zambezi?
Then past our resting place of thatch and stone
A bunch of nuns come
Flying in a heavenly white
Landrover
Long nuns’ bits
Streaming out
Behind them through the green.
Your wrinkled shirt over your
Sweat-brown body flaps open

So they do not look as you nod.
They are here teach us that
The sound of a hippo
Farting
Is ungodly,
Does not belong in the real Paradise
And naked men
Are obscene.

The river hiccups and brings forth
Debris, and the path we
Walk is littered with
Huge mountains of elephant dung.

The air is filled with the distant
Roar of a mating lion.

And we tremble and laugh nervously
Because there are no fences
This is their territory.
I lick my finger
Wipe the mosquito leg
From your cheek
Our kiss has sand in it.
See Full Story »

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