The Ofi Press Magazine

This dark will go on forever

so stand up, feel your way

to the laptop desk where the drawer

has a box of matches, strike one

and enter the kitchen, in the bottom

drawer of the third shelf are candles,

light one, take it to the living room,

sit down, and ask your wife why

she decided to feed the monkeys that

woke you up so early today, squealing

leaping from tree branch to rooftop

as if you did not matter, doesn’t she

know there are people out there

who would do with a banana

and an orange?

 “But we are not out there, we

are here in the dark, for another

three hours probably, and those

monkeys were sweet, one carefully

peeling the banana then nibbling at it,

the other first wrestling with the orange

pips, like you and me; you shared pawpaw

with monkeys at Ku Chawe Inn breakfast

on Zomba Plateau once, what of these?

I would do it again any day, and when

the lights come back on I’ll Skype

Joseph in Luxembourg or Nathan

in Welwyn Garden City about

their grandma’s encounters with

the cute monkeys of Gaborone.”