Member Poem

Zimbabwe, 1991

I wish I knew why, but I dreamed about you

last night. You were bald, like the last time

I saw you, and young. About nine. I didn’t

know what cancer was. We sat, counting

chongololos in the post-rain. They wobbled

on their hundred legs, black-hunched and inching.

It must have been March. Everything dripped

in the gentle aftermath. You were my sister’s friend,

so I don’t know why I was even there. You asked

if we still rationed water. I told you the school

built a small, stone-grey fountain in your memory—

(Originally appeared in Winter Tangerine)