6 Errant Thoughts On Being a Refugee | by Sarah Lubala | African Poetry

1
on the worst of my days
this body
is a gimcrack-vessel
no more than two lungs and
a tremor
nailed to salvaged wood

2
grief traveled with me
across the Ubangi river

i prayed love and all her cognates
on the passage over:
libet (to please)
lips (to be needed)
lyp (to beg)

i arrived with
bruised knees
wet hair
a mouth-full of salted fish

3
i am so
hungry
hungry
hungry
for holiness
for communion
for a God you can sink
your teeth into

4
i was raised on
the Congolese-gospel
i can teach you how to forget
where you’re from
to worship the wide road before you
hands open
like this:
make each palm
a letter
to the sky

5
Beni
is a town
with one police station
airport
market
many graves

i should go back
my people are weeping

6
‘home’
is a narrow bed to sleep in

**************

Post image by Monique Prater via Flickr.

About the Author:

Sarah Lubala works as a Development Worker for an Education NGO in Johannesburg. When she’s not at the office, she can be found in gardens, drinking copious amounts of tea and reading Pablo Neruda’s Love Sonnets.