Black Tax

The money grows teeth in my pocket,

gnashing at the seams—

a rand with eyes,

red as the dust where my father’s shadow

sits cross-legged,

counting chickens that never hatched. I send it home,

wrapped in a letter I don’t write,

and it flies on vulture wings,

landing in a tin-roofed mouth

that chews without thanks.

Auntie’s voice crackles through the phone

“The cow is thin,

the school fees dance in the wind,

your cousin’s belly swells with no husband.”

I see her in the mirror,

a spider spinning my paycheque into webs,

sticky with yesterday’s promises.

The bank account blinks,

a one-eyed beggar laughing,

and I pour coins into a calabash

that leaks like a cracked skull.

In the city,

I wear a suit of smoke,

Sweating rands for Western Union,

but the village drums throb in my ribs—

Thump-thump-thump, pay-pay-pay,

a rhythm older than a tyrant’s ghost,

blacker than the tar on my boots.

I dream a mango tree,

ripe with my own juice, but the roots coil up,

suck me dry,

whispering Ubuntu

with a beggar’s grin.

Fragments fall—

a child’s shoe on the doorstep,

a hospital bill folded into a hymn,

my sister’s prayer in a bottle of gin.

I’m a bridge,

not the kind you cross,

the kind you burn to keep the fire going,

a king of cinders

ruling a throne of IOUs,

watching the horizon

swallow my name whole.