To build a home

Like books. We’re stacked one on top of another

Each with a story we’ve been meaning to read

But just haven’t the time.

Three thousand bodies carried by concrete
that hum to the music of its giant flute

And along with birds wings

Dogs barking

Zionists

And spinning rubber across the bloodstained spine of Slovo. 

I don’t know if it’s going to rain today

But the patter of small feet trickling down the staircase

Tells me that everything will grow despite.

Its purple across Joburg.

My words tremble with the thought of year-end already.

But I can’t feel it.

Because my body hovers -

Somewhere between the sky and its South African ground

So I open the window and try connect.

Of all the apartments I see, I wonder

If we really are

That far apart.