for Karabo Mokoena
Privileged to be able to do this, a bought safety.
We’re running out of bubbles and sushi, still
tender from an afternoon of taste and wet
and moan and reach. I’m used to love
on the edge of a cliff, unsurprised to find
myself in the tempest heart of another
triangle. Both brown and gasping and drunk –
the food’s arrived. I find a fig-leaf
and head downstairs. Unknown to me
uBaba has been watching us both. Glint
of a silver star on green felt, I feel my steps
quicken despite myself. Sisi –
is that a girl with you? The one upstairs?
What is it? Do you sleep together?
Are you alone here? Do you need anything?
I get off at six, if you girls need me
to come up. I can teach you. Unbuckling
his belt, so that I’m sure of his meaning.
Back inside the room, I smell smoke.
Maneo Refiloe Mohale is a South African editor, feminist writer and poet. Her work has appeared in various local and international publications, including Jalada, Prufrock, The Beautiful Project, The Mail & Guardian, spectrum.za, and others. She is a 2016 Bitch Media Global Feminism Fellow, and has been longlisted twice for the Sol Plaatje European Union Poetry Anthology Award. Her debut anthology of poetry, Everything is a Deathly Flower will be published with uHlanga Press in September 2019.