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Today she is not here

A poem from Gabeba Baderoon. Part of a series of poems by African feminist writers for 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence.

Gabeba Baderoon

3 December 2012

There are things I cannot tell you
about beginnings.
An engagement is an exchange
of intentions between two people
and two families.
A beginning.
At this engagement party the two young people
barely look at each other. You’d hardly know
the party was for them among the many
who have come for the food,
the ritual, the talking.
One sister is missing.
He is usually careful
not to draw attention like this.
She will be alright
for the wedding and all the photos
will show her smiling like the rest.
And her sons will be there
among the others, her sons
whom she is teaching
about softness and yielding,
as her father taught her.
Her father who came to her house and looked
a little past her shoulder and said,
no one needs
to stay in a house where a man raises
a hand to his wife. Come home.
And she looked equally
long and silently at him.
And, who knows why, she said
kassie, Da, but I will stay.
And who knows if that stopped him for a while
or made him worse.
Today she is not here for the engagement.

This poem was originally published in A Hundred Silences by Gabeba Baderoon (Cape Town, Kwela/Snailpress, 2006).

Read other articles in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.

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