Mpho Leteng Poet Free verse

Where the Border Folds Its Tarpaulins

The beaten clay of the market road is thick and heavy underfoot,
clinging to the tires of purple line 7 seaters and boots of the commuters.
The silence of the Kasane tarmac feels a thousand miles away
the moment I step across the border line and drop into the shouting of the crowd,
where the zinc sheets of the stall roofs are still dripping onto the mud from the sudden downpour.

I navigate the narrow lanes, my sneakers sinking into the wet, rutted earth,
as the sharp smell of dried kapenta  mixes with roasting maize and hot diesel exhaust.
The money changers lean past my shoulders, aggressively flashing thick bricks of Kwacha notes,
their voices competing with the loud, erratic vibration of a petrol generator
that someone is fueling with a plastic funnel just a few steps away from the food stalls.

The woman who sells tomatoes doesn’t look up as I squeeze past her wooden crate;
she is entirely focused on using a piece of cardboard to sweep the muddy water away,
her plastic apron heavily stained with the dark juice of crushed vegetables.
Beside her, a trader aggressively unpacking secondhand jackets from a damp canvas bale,
shouting out prices to consumers who keep their heads down, calculating the cost of a meal.

A couple of young men stand huddled together under the narrow shelter of the butchery awning,
their smartphones held high toward the sky to catch a flickering network signal after the storm.
They are talking loudly about a music gig in Lusaka, using big words and forced laughter,
trying to pretend that the wet mud on their jeans doesn’t tell the true story of their morning hustle,
but the market doesn't care about their city pretenses.
It only asks that you look closely at the people who do not have the luxury of quitting,
and that you write down their names exactly as they are written in the mud.

The afternoon sun begins to drop behind the floodplains, turning the puddles into sheets of orange light.
The freight trucks bound for the north begin to rev their engines, waiting for the customs gates to clear,
while the vendors slowly fold up their damp tarpaulins for the night.
I walk out toward the edge of the clearing, leaving the smell of wood smoke and wet earth behind,
as the market closes its books and prepares to do the exact same thing tomorrow.

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