These ravenous grey haired men come to us in their white garments – Poem

By Netsai Marova

I am Memory, but you might know me as Anna.
I am a child but cannibals feast on me like manna.

Little girls, we don’t grow in botanical gardens, but we are flowers too.
Little souls, we have no protector. So, old men can marry more than two,
They pluck us while we are green, before we bloom like the Jacaranda,
They use no protector plus, yet they refuse to send us to Karanda.

These ravenous grey haired men come to us in their white garments,
They are toothless but they bite, see black lists in police departments.
They are wolves in sheep’s clothing, but they claim to be soft as wool.
Their shrine was visited by a crocodile and its hatchlings, that’s not cool.

They continue to feast on zondo, vegetables and potatoes,
While my young body lies in the morgue, a very cool mortuary
They parcelled out my underage sister, she still has little toes.
Justice comes like a tortoise, this will be another obituary.

I am Anna, but you might know me as Memory.
Children can’t be married, keep this in memory.