The Caped Menace

She’s waiting on the Hill Road
for the construction worker
on the short-term contract,
his sweet talk guile.

Her perfect English’s only got her so far.
These days it’s about foraging for firewood
wielding that axe, being sister-mother to that boy,
when all he wants to do is drum.

Lake Malawi’s wink, a planet’s orbit away,
holds a promise, salvation or grief,
its shoreline infested
by more men in hyena skins.

Best, dear child,
to have never been so intelligent,
better to have been second born.