What Dee Knows About Africa

 

What Dee Knows About Africa

 

 

They have droughts there,

the ant hills are very big,

and the hunters,

 

who can find a single buffalo

hiding in a herd

by the shape of his hoofprints,

 

who read the pages of their land

with a sense of jot and pixel

she could only smudge with elephantine thumbs,

 

know nothing but tracking,

and track only Africa, no chance of a spear

through her colonial plaster walls,

into the leopard of her spotless heart.

 

Donald Zirilli

Donald Zirilli was a finalist for the James Tate Prize and a nominee for the Forward Prize. He was editor of Now Culture and is a member of the Red Wheelbarrow Gang. His poetry was published in The 2River View, Amarillo Bay, ART TIMES, The Hamilton Stone Review, Nerve Lantern, Nixes Mate, River Styx, and other periodicals and anthologies. He and his wife live in an idyllic corner of New Jersey with two dogs and a cat. His chapbook, Heaven’s Not For You, was published in September, 2018, by Kelsay Books.