Poem
Charles Mungoshi
Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours
This is the fifth warningI won't speak to you again
I don't want to look through your kitchen
into your bedroom to see your wife
wiping her snotty nose and sleephungry redeyes
with a dishrag
her underwear crucified on a hooked peg
above your sagging three-legged bed
she has occupied alone all night
under a rateaten rag of a blanket praying for relief
into a hunger-stained mattress that's not ashamed
to preach its sackcloth secrets to any
passerby
this is the fifth and last warning.
Don't let me hear again
your sex-on-the-side-sated voice
like a lorry unloading junk when you come in
at the milkman's time
to a hot breakfast she never tires
of getting ready
for your thankless
pig's throat
this is the fifth and final warning
I won't speak to you again
but perhaps it's too late already
the milkman doesn't only deliver milk, you know.
© 1988,
From: The Milkman Doesn't Only Deliver Milk
Publisher: Baobab Books, Harare
From: The Milkman Doesn't Only Deliver Milk
Publisher: Baobab Books, Harare
Poems
Poems of Charles Mungoshi
Close
Neighbours
This is the fifth warningI won't speak to you again
I don't want to look through your kitchen
into your bedroom to see your wife
wiping her snotty nose and sleephungry redeyes
with a dishrag
her underwear crucified on a hooked peg
above your sagging three-legged bed
she has occupied alone all night
under a rateaten rag of a blanket praying for relief
into a hunger-stained mattress that's not ashamed
to preach its sackcloth secrets to any
passerby
this is the fifth and last warning.
Don't let me hear again
your sex-on-the-side-sated voice
like a lorry unloading junk when you come in
at the milkman's time
to a hot breakfast she never tires
of getting ready
for your thankless
pig's throat
this is the fifth and final warning
I won't speak to you again
but perhaps it's too late already
the milkman doesn't only deliver milk, you know.
From: The Milkman Doesn't Only Deliver Milk
Neighbours
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