Beaton Galafa

The morning he came, in a soft voice whispering love
fondled me out of the city’s darkness:
from hunchbacks and cripples dangling at the bottom,
to forests yonder and beneath:
serene as a cemetery night,
calm as Syria after the bombs,
with chirps and splashes preaching paradise,
to love and caress me away from pain.
At the river we crushed on the rock.
My soul slipped away and watched from a distance:
it wanted to scream but its mouth was gagged,
shocked at how love could breed blood and crush bones
and leave mums and dads weeping for a life they never owned.

Beaton Galafa is a Malawian writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. In 2014, he participated in the Commonwealth Creative Nonfiction Writers Workshop in Uganda. In 2016, he won the Free Expression-Malawi Essay Writing Competition. In 2017, he was selected to participate in the Writivism Literary Project’s Mentorship Program. Some of his poetry has appeared in local print and online magazines as well as international online literary magazines such as The Maynard and The Voices Project.