My name is Queen Stuurman.
Not Queen Elizabeth,
or Queen Latifah,
but simply just Queen.

I am a unique being born and raised in the roots of Africa,
my culture and roots are proof of where I'm from,
I'm not made in China.
I AM PROUDLY AFRICAN!!
A representation of my country,
its war cry resides within me,
my rainbow nation skin colour,
the many stories about my beautiful country I have yet to tell in my head.

So next time you see me,
call me Queen Stuurman
that's my Afrikaans and isiXhosa surname,
made and bred in Africa,
I am the African Queen.

Nylon echoes each movement
and impact of the walking bodies -
we are waiting for them to pass Dante’s place setting

they are bringing the first taste of fruit
– caterpillar walking –
pouring dust
behind them and with the other hand
before them clearing the path of dirt -
Singing ‘It continues where it falls’ - -

The fruit is good – the year shall pass –
and the juice holds still on the soft hairs of your cheek,
then all are packed away until there
are only the gummy bristles shimmering when you speak.

It had always been said that many many pelicans
had always followed each other -
formationless intravenous droplets upon the harbour wall
that grey with clouds and
circle the fish gutting – irreverent mobs of birds
are the realisation that nature is unsustainable -
she believed so – baseball cap echoing
one hand sweeping
a box under the other arm -
passing the pelicans she wondered what you were thinking,
Feeling the damp of her armpit reach the
cardboard,
She placed the fruit upon the boat and
followed the hallucinating Eland to another’s home
singing an Evangelie vir Vissers
and spilling back and forth from isiXhosa,
continuing up the path from
not yet flooded lowlands to a pale breached