Redeye Cat
Mum made us wash our feet in pee. She called us from our room — just the siblings. We descended,…
Stories
The Flute Player
Finally, the pain in my back eased. I dropped my pack, sank to the ground and leaned against a tree.…
Tamarind
Two people dominated our lives, and I hadn’t met either of them: my father, who deserted my mother barely a…
Final Effort of the Wind
This work of fiction includes graphic depictions of sexual violence that some readers may find distressing. Heat slices the…
Bread and Butter
August 1977, Jaffna The year that I turned eleven, every Wednesday, when school was over, I would skip the two…
A Room Full of Teddy Bears
‘Your skin is beautiful — that’s why they look at you. They admire it. They are just too afraid to…
Broken String
Qhunna sat under a makeshift shelter, a torn tent, at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Part of the protest. It…
Beasts
We were stacked high and narrow in that terraced Victorian house. The attic contained two bedrooms, one of which always…
Uncommon Banyan
A poem based on the Commonwealth Charter Illustration by Caleb L. Viljoen Aerial roots drop from branch to soil, each…
Fuir et se cacher
This poem is best viewed in a web browser. Close your eyes I see a woman unwrapping a papered…
Memorial and Shape of An Epitaph
Memorial Sacred to the memory of Harry St. George Galt, Acting Sub-Commissioner of the Western province who was murdered…
Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Perhaps the thing that makes us powerful is also the thing that makes us invisible. The body, a house…
part of loving this mother is alleging
birthdays are usually private parties where my mother empties her whole heart one of the few occasions she cries …
Listen
advice to self— and to leaders in times of crisis and ordinary times: you have no answers not…
dear radiology resident, tell me
This poem is best viewed in a web browser.
