菲利帕•维丽叶斯诗4首
（为Keorapetse Kgositsile教授七十寿辰而作）
(for Khwezi, the woman who accused Jacob Zuma of rape)
The uncle who held my hand and
my black patent leather shoes,
who turned my face to him and then
He bought me another ice-cream
The time I got my new orange hot pants
with the yellow patent leather belt
and he smiled and told me I was beautiful and
asked me when I was turning twelve
only after I’ve turned eleven.
his eyes, searching mine, asking
is that nice, baby, is that nice?
And he seemed to need me to say yes,
and now I’m not sure if it was my fault or not
I’m not sure if I was raped or not.
You can say one thing or 55 things:
because he was giving me so much,
I was really stuck with nowhere to live
he gave me more than I was asking for.
I did really only want a place to sleep
But I don’t know if I was raped because
is so much a piece of darkness
stuffed into a screaming mouth
Infants don’t remember: I can’t recall
the rough blanket of the nurse’s love, bundled out
in bulk to the babies “awaiting placement”;
her pen, charting our progress, our feeding and faeces:
all of this is gone. Her kind indifference,
like the white bars of our cots,
clean, dry, comfortable, solitary cells;
may or may not have been there.
I don’t remember giving up crying or
except that I always did want something,
I think maybe what I wanted and what I want
the features of a forgotten face:
the beach: naked snails and crabs
One day the Hillbrow Tower started to cry.
Real tears poured down its sides
the other buildings saw the tower's sadness
they started to weep in sympathy.
Soon the whole city was sobbing,
and filled the depressions and valleys.
They flowed until they became a river
that carried us into the night,
When I go to the metropole I feel defensive:
we Africans are not barbaric, I assert.
I tell them that they don’t know what it’s like;
there are cultural differences,
these things are also coloured by racism,
the west has its pets, its tame Annans,
it’s not our fault that you don’t understand us,you never have.
level with the stars, we cruise
above the masses in their thrall of poverty,
When I step off the plane I feel like a missionary.
I want to tell everybody to use a condom,
treat women fairly, get educated, get a life.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.