Chains is about a city and about being black.
Chains
Gaborone at night is like Mecca
in the daylight,
there are prayers whispered in
the quiet confines
of temples and hallelujahs sang
beneath the broad
arch of churches that hug
corners tightly while
car tires screech and horns
blare,
a testament before cigarettes
flare,
cupped in shaking hands, in front
of torn nails,
these callused hands of a construction
worker,
a farmer, a priest,
we are a working people, we
many and bold
learning the sadness of our
black skin draped in
chains we’ve never claimed.
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