Yvette Christiansë

Side by side

Original language

SISTER THOMAS AT JACOB’S LADDER

Now. How you gonna make sense
when these people need ya?

grumble, grumbling
these not so nice words
don’t know no manners
make me knees creak
an me weight spills
over the top of me
panties, hangs an
presses down on
me nipples

Lead kindly light
fast falls the rock
rock of ages in tha
bosom of Abraham

tha devil suckin
on me nipples
hoo-hoo-hoooo
so much ticklin
an me weight spills
lak tha rain
on a black man’s
grave but me
nipples get suck
suck suck

And I look unto the hills
from whence cometh
my God, my God, why
in the valley of the shadow of
Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Lift up
your heart and sing

a-blaa, blaa, blaa
lak a sheepie sheep-sheep
with a fat little rump
tha devil suck-suck
and me fat bottom get bump

Lord! When light comes
to this side of the island
let me be here, among the saints
again, and the morning
will rest upon my hands
and there will be nothing
like the sweetness of my voice
for I will have passed through
all temptation, blessed, blessed
Amen-nyen-nyen-nyen-nyen.

Yvette Christiansë

(South Africa, 1954)

Yvette Christiansë is a South African-born poet and novelist whose writing explores the rich themes of the country’s history – slavery and apartheid, exile and displacement. The precise date of her birth in a humble dwelling in the curiously named Hondsebek (literally “the mouth of the dog”) is something of a mystery. “In truth,” she says, “only my mother, my now deceased grandparents, and the ...

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