Prayers To Dada

Four poems on what the dead leave in the bodies of the living & what inheritance the dead leave for the living — from Tafara Gava

LADY GOLGOTHA

cawing is birdsong to the crow outside whom nature has loaned a riot for a voice.

such a splintered squawk is the tune — of my lark & i am madonna —

through a window this moon beam has found hands and a lap to die in. to sleep,

that totalitarian, i am a wife. elsewhere my black italian leather

matches the sheen of my nail polish. to death, dreams & company

i am only — an eye to shut, on tv the news anchor luxuriantly says

“eye” then “rack.” when the screen blackens off i hear them still

in my skull, bombs in baghdad. of breathing measured,

of limbs limp i’ve been undressed. i am only

a throbbing and bloodshot eye. i am only an insomniac —

my bed is my cross this room, golgotha.

THE TRUTH ABOUT DADA

hauled me away — hair, shadow, feet and scream. a year of wintering,

you, endless, might do me in. run me over, train without headlights —

now in this gust hinges of my bones creak, breath warm

i have no idea — am I arriving or leaving? there’ll be no forgiveness

in my church, only crucifixion, barking not preaching,

frankincense, myrrh unfurling like cigarette smoke.

what a crime — to die how you did, soiling mother and leasing her

one score more of years. son, sire, skeleton,

they should go — your suitcase, silver wrist — watch,

photographs and wedding tuxedo

WIDOWS WHO LUNCH

how difficult — a man it is to raise

a nation a crisis, a sun-bound icarus

anyhow twice the testosterone twice the timbre

three is trouble —

black, white what comes in-between — war soiling a wedding

bed. thrice the tearing thrice the triggering thrice the trepanning

a mother is morning —

dew is drink, light a warm fabric to cradle

a son, soldier, spouse, sire skeleton —

VICTORIA FALLS

she didn’t intend to appear — without appearing. she didn’t

mean to wash her hair eternally, a white sheet

cascading to rocks, jagged and balled like fists. she whips it

back, and waves unfurl till hair is

air — machine-gun firing, thundering the

earth. for whom this ritual? is it for the man

sporting concrete skin, jodhpurs, a rifle, one arm cocked at his concrete waist?

contrapposto — he will propose: noose her

from johannesburg here a gold ring — name her after

his widow mother whose other children are countries. it is

as decided as concrete — she is a bride, gown billowing into

rainbow. he is a groom ready to leap — into nuptials, eon-old waters.

Tafara Gava is a Zimbabwean poet and novelist. He’s divided his life amongst Harare his hometown, the Black Forest in Germany, and several cities in the United States’s East-Coast. Gava’s writing has appeared in Poetry Habitat, Mount Hope Magazine, Blood + Honey. His poetry is forthcoming in the Broadkill Review.