You Were There

From my very beginning

You were there

Mopping the blood from the floor

Of the room in which I was born.

Always you were there

Washing our clothes and carrying away our refuse.

You swept the streets we walked along

You dug and weeded the garden we played in

You cleaned the toilet we crapped in.

Always you were there

Waiting in starched-white smiling obedience

With mop and broom and spade

Down on your hands and knees

Doing what every South African mother threatened

She would never do for her own children-

Cleaning up after us.

Always you were there

To dispose of what we found distasteful

Our dust, our refuse, our blood and our excrement

While in the tranquility of that White English paradise

Your hidden flower of anger grew

Slowly and surely as a tumour.

Always you were there

Weary of our shit

Hungry for our blood.