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Available for over a year

Boikanyo Did you know, I bet you didn't I bet you didn't know that you have to grind your teeth for years In order to unlearn how to dream These are some of the things we know that you do not In fact there was a boy who lived on that street last year who Knew all the names of the colour of cattle He could count to twenty five without making a mistake When the breeze would bring a gift of old newspapers He could read it wrong way round and tell us Gathered ears listening, what it was saying And when there would be no wind, just the hungry heat to carry his words he used tell us stories He'd heard from an uncle who'd died long before the social workers came for him and his sister Anyway he used to speak about a place he said they called Botswana He says if a parent died, the living gathered to be given the most precious things And that children, babies just like us were always the first gifts to be taken in and given a home Of course we don't believe him. We are poor not stupid, We know better than to trust a trickster and liar Who spends more time with cows than people Who is no longer here to explain himself or his fantasies No such place exists From: MINORITY REPORT 2011: prayer-poems for our young commissioned by UNICEF Botswana for a live reading