The Poetry Project

from CHRONOLOGY

Zahra Patterson

Choma,

It’s Friday. Raining. April 10.

A lover asked about my tattoo and I told her about you. I wonder, if you were alive, would I have told her about you? Would I be telling you about her?

I am at the Science, Industry and Business Library. I had requested a six-volume set of dictionaries to help me get your language into mine, as I attempt to translate Yvonne Nei’s short story. However, it is a one-way dictionary. For English speakers only. There is no Southern Sesotho into English section.

This is frustrating because I have wasted my time in coming here, to this library. It is frustrating politically, too.

Love,
Zahra

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