Three Women
- Three Women
Three women step out of the Calabash hotelThe sudden wave of freezing raindrops-filled windsHits them. They hug in haste, run to the two carsMidnight approaches, sounding louder & louder
The youngest woman, alone in her car smilesUnstoppably, to herself, as she drives into the nightThe voices of the two women still alive in her headIn bed, her smile becomes the conductor of her dreams
In the black Mercedes Benz, C180 the oldest womanTurns on the heater before they take offThey see the stories of Grahamstown on theArchitecture of buildings as they drive out of town
The younger of the two, the driver of the Benz,Steadies the car on the road while her mind jolts,Crosses over, skips, stretches, scatters & returnsTo the single holding thread: the warmth of sisterhood
The oldest woman runs into her B & B on Harry StreetAfter saying goodbye, goodnight, thank you for everythingIn her room she turns on the heater, the electric blanketThe kettle & the ultimate dream: a world of women of wisdom [End Page 359]
In bed she returns to the topics of conversationWith the two women while a chorus plays in her heart “Hold on, hold firm Enjoy the joys of sisterhood, The joys of sisterhood The tangible joys of sisterhood” [End Page 360]
Makhosazana Xaba is a poet, short story writer, and anthologist. She is the author of two poetry collections and Running and Other Stories (2013), which won the SALA Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award in 2014. Her poetry has been anthologized extensively, translated into Italian, Mandarin, and Turkish and is available from the Cambridge Poetry Archive. In 2017 her poem “Twenty one houses” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2014 she was nominated in the poetry category of the Mbokodo Awards. In 2016 she edited Like the Untouchable Wind: An Anthology of Poems.
