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# The Minister and Me
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/minister-and-me/
- Published: 2012-11-28T10:11:38.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T20:49:09.000Z
- Description: A poem by Isabella Matambanadzo. Part of a series of poems by African feminist writers for 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence.
- Author: Isabella Matambanadzo
- Tags: 50.50 Our Africa, #Migrated, violence against women, 16 Days, 2012, 16 Days: activism against gender based violence, 50.50 Editor's Pick, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 14:30

- In the morning, The Honourable
- Minister For The Territorial Integrity of the Interior
- lifted himself from my bed
- using the same precision he’d
- deployed getting into it.
- Legs arched at the knees,
- he swiveled, Honourably
- as if controlled
- by an invisible mechanical cord,
- He placed his Honourable size ten feet
- evenly on the fluffy rectangular rug
- that held his hand made slip-on shoes
- selected as much for comfort as for their obscene opulence
- An Honourable man of exacting character,
- he considered a shoe
- of extremely comfortable fit
- a premium.
- My shoe, he said to me,
- in an Honourable baritone,
- Well-made as it is,
- sends a signal to the rest of the world.
- Tailored by the unforgettable hands
- of women and once virgin girls
- mothers and daughters sold into slavery
- by the disappointments of their homelands.
- He gave an Honourable snort of the
- Calf’s nose leather, the Made from label read,
- Designed to give you a barely there feeling.
- Their colour: A bitter cinnamon stained in honey red.
- They make me look sharper too, he explained, especially with
- my matching belt, motioning Honourably, at his mid riff.
- You know, he paused, left wrist catching the nothingness of air
- A man like me must have his regalia.
- $ 1550.00 he’d paid, cash.
- I’d kept the box they came in for other things.
- It stood on a simple chest at the foot of the bed.
- Custom made, it read, \~Durability \~ Quality \~ Originality.
- That evening he would lead
- This Honourable Minister,
- Who for 15 years had believed
- He’d had exclusive rent of me,
- A first class military operation
- To clean up the streets of filth,
- Unaccompanied women
- And other dangerous undesirables.
- A shoe, I thought
- Mmmm in mock pleasure
- Holding my box
- The dustbin of his leisure.
- The independent papers would report
- That a sole had left its birthmark
- \~Durability \~ Quality \~ Originality
- On the faces of my sister hookers
- While the solid silver buckle of its matching belt
- Struck Hure! Hure! Hure\*!
- Causing a rise in welts
- Buttocks, thighs, breasts
- He earned substantial praise from his superiors
- And an Honourable mention.
- That was until the same independent papers
- Carried a full colour spread
- Of his explicit exploits and adult preferences
- With a woman who was identified only as The recently elected
- President Of the Society of Sex Worker Rights
- and the Integrity of the real Interior.

\* Whore, whore, whore.

*Read* [*other articles*](http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/16-days-activism-against-gender-violence/16-days-of-activism-against-gender-violence-2012) *in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.*