Two Poems by Abigail George

 

Skin

I wash his body

I wash my father’s back

And not the back of a lover

In the bathroom of a hotel

As I once did once upon a time

When I was in my twenties

Young, innocent, free, beautiful

But the fact of the matter is

I did not see myself as a being

Or a creature who was young,

innocent, free or beautiful

 

Now I am older

I have lost my personal freedom

Now I am in a cage

I am free to go at any stage

But I stay

I stay

Because I am a daughter

Because I am good

I stay because I have been taught the language of sacrifice

I stay because I have a responsibility

 

I wash my father

I towel dry his body

I rub lotion on his legs

I help him dress

I give him his medication

Coffee, something to eat

While he eats

I drink coffee and have

Something to eat

And so our day begins

 

I wash the sins of his past

Off his skin

The skin that belonged

To his father and all who came before him

The skin of this mother

Of all who came before her

I wipe the stigma out of his face

I rinse the soap out of his hair

All the while remembering his tears

His relapses

His hospitalizations

What an education this is,

This journey and phase of my life is

And how astounding all the bonds of love are.

He grows weaker

I grow stronger,

More invincible,

Vastly superior

By the day

And somehow I must make sense of that

Somehow I must accept that

Somehow I must survive.

Biko

They talk

They whisper

They gossip 

behind my back

and call me “quite mad”

I try to explain this

to the martyrs Biko

and George Botha 

I cry bitter tears 

in the middle 

of the night

I try and speak of the melancholy

but nobody understands

Peter Gabriel made being

tortured to death look sexy

Feel sexy

I  have been walking 

in your footsteps 

Steven Bantu Biko

all my life

With your frank talk

You’re so Camus

but you don’t ape him

You’re no fake

You don’t pretend

You live in my now

Your pen is my pen

I dream in subject matters of blood-red

I dream in black and white

I dream in genes and spirits

It's in my DNA

I live in this house of bondage

crying myself to sleep

I am still a prisoner of conscience.

by Abigail George