I sing a different song
In my unique key, the key of Q.
I am the lighter skin tones
You hear in common native English
Spoken by most of the world:
Vowels flattened, consonants all sharp,
My mouth unlocks at the lips.
I, too, am South Africa.
I sent myself here, via airmail,
Economy class, aisle seat,
In search of a new island home
Away from the broken backs
Of my darker mothers;
Necks all compacted from seated ancestors,
A long line sitting crosslegged
With their frowns hung
On motherly crowns.
I sent myself, a male heir,
Away from fatherly unintelligibility;
White and privileged in a European
State of mind, guiltily cloaked
In the uniform of public education,
Milking opportunity until that colonial
Cow ran dry
As divined by raging sangomas.
When you come into my hut
To sit on cow dung floors and to listen
To my thatched roof converse
With the blue beyond above
I, too, sing “Nkosi Sikel ‘iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo”
In our kraal with you as one
In one nakedly drumming voice.
Knock on wood next
And when you enter my house
And sit on my sofa
To drink Rooibos tea mixed with Earl Grey
I, too, sing “Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see”
Marching in the televised streets
With you - vuvuzelas and toyi-toyis muted.
Singing of power, we sign our sins to the heavens
Equally well in Xhosa, in Zulu,
In Sesotho, in Afrikaans, and in our barefoot English.
Languages are a familiar violence that unites us.
We laugh in the blackouts
While our Tokoloshe shadows flicker on candlelit walls.
We eat important-sounding imported food.
We grow brave on braaivleis, brandewyn, and beer.
Behind our barbed wire decorations we still feel fear.
Now I’m eating at a Taiwanese table
All round and plentiful in the in-laws’ kitchen
With stiff chopstick fingers
And a doting mother who makes me
Want to be a bigger man,
Urging my empty mouth and overfull stomach
On with “Duō chī yīdiǎn!”
I am her handsome wàiguó rén
Son-in-law of Taiwan;
Motherlandless,
Fatherlandless,
Adopted by virtue of love
And marriage
And repeated fatherhood.
Beautifully newborn again,
I am an unashamedly Caucasian orphan
With a taste for chòu dòufu and khòng-bah-pn̄g,
Washed down with a tall iced lǜchá.
Yes, I sing a different song,
For I have five different tongues
And I travel with all my heart:
I am South Africa, but
I, too, am Taiwan.
