Not African, this heat to us, just
something that we fled.
Any pool would do: strangers’,
owners overseas. We swarmed
in barefoot solidarity. Sothos
kept paths spotless, rockeries
in flower, water filtered,
while we swam from house
to house. We started at the spark
of day and ended
with the sunset of our birthright,
the bloody red of it, the grass in flames.
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Eric Braude is a computer science professor who began writing poetry in earnest fifteen years ago. He grew up in South Africa. He wrote the frontmatter poem for a collection, Songs from the Castle's Remains, won a newspaper competition in the New England Merrimack region, and has published several poems in Poetica.