POETRY

The Nineteen Eighties

Brian Walter

brian@seaberg.co.za

I recall that I touched in kindness

his shoulder: and he winced

. . . and then he lifted up his shirt

to show sjambok cuts repeated

across his back, in red-blue welts

that patterned his brown skin

-university was never like this,

but then, I was classified as white.

My student was softly telling me

why his work was late:

they all ran, he said, and security

found him in the dark, and laid in.

"It happens," he shrugged, and flinched,

"but it's been difficult to write."