Safari

Eyes trained in envy
stare straight into my solar plexus.

Africa! Gosh you’re so lucky!

But one day, before the sun broke free,
I was thrown into a jeep of green and brown
so we could drown in fauna,
to tread delicately, to follow
a critically endangered mother.

The guide said it was fine. He went ahead.
Our footsteps barely pressed the earth,
Do not disturb the dead.

Underneath this lumpy brown sweater I 
was still a girl, tear-stained and
reading that a rhino’s skin harbours parasites:
food for egrets.  

There we stood, predators as dung
beetles rolled their offerings by
our shoes laced too tight,
eyes wide seeing only
A cow with sight like a rabbit’s,
whose ears deemed us unworthy.
Cameras swung in the soft air of daybreak.

Did you know black rhinos are solitary?
Their only lasting bond
mother and calf.

Were you scared?

Only crocodiles or lions
would ever take down
that heavy-footed horned angel.

I wish I could say I saw into her
eyes, gazed at a maternal bond
so fierce, the kind that shields and
charges.

But my foot grazed —
a branch cracked into the morning air,
and I had ruined it again.

Another mother
turned her back.