NIGHT
ON THE ZAMBESI
The
mosquitoes have tattooed
my
defending knuckles
with
LOVE and HATE
and
etched the ululating air
around
my head with thin wails of grief.
I
cannot sleep.
The
round obsessive moon has ironed
my
brain as bland and flat
as
her mad, jealous face
and
gentle dreaming will not stick to it.
I
am the sweating night's prisoner
and
the sun's rejected child.
Sleep
and my lover have left me
and
there is no hope of this night ending.
Copyright Ruth
Hartley 1993 Written on a hot night in a tent by the Zambesi River.
Published in 'The
West in her Eye. Poems by Women.' 1995
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