The South African Woman in Brooke’s Picture

I am denied

those

vivid colors—

the burnt-orange,

the reds and the yellows

framing her face,

skirting

her softness.  A sheet

of murky darkness

nailed,  corrosive

barbed-wire planted,

between us:

is it the texture

that

 

separates me

from my

 

sister in Azania?

I feel her eyes, searching—

her

brilliant world

dimmed by a shabby

over-wash.  Intensity

of the human

spirit

does not fade in the

slums of life.  Shadows

conceal,

and fences only

bar.  The African woman

 

and I, one prism

toward the light—

nothing halts

the undiluted spectrum.

 Inspired by a copy of a painting by Sue Williamson,  Cape Town, South Africa.  First published GFWoman.