Photograph of Her Brother’s Skull

 
They give you to me,
a numbered skull from a high shelf
and in my hand you are
a strange brute thing – a thing I hardly see
-my brother.
 
The clean smooth bone of you
– the whole of you no longer with me.
In this room of discovered skulls,
I have lost my memories
And the photographer fixes your dead stare
for his lens.
 
In this room of skulls,
Your face is lost,
my brother,
and I grips hard to what is left.
 

After Sunday Mass in Malawi

 
After Sunday Mass they whispered:
‘he was a poet, perhaps.
A dissident, yes.’
He ignored the spies in his classroom.’
Then someone else also remembered:
‘Of course, this is not our country.
We are Whites, you see
 

I Saw Beckett the Other Day

 
I saw Beckett the other…