what we lost was the moon
in a language where blood
and moon are the same
so those who said
they lost blood
died
while we
pointed at the sky
what we lost was the moon
in a language where month
and moon are the same
so those who said
they lost time
died
while we
orchestrated an eclipse
kgwedi e e tletseng
a full moon
a month
with a search warrant
blood
with no stop order
or all these at once
the moon in our hands
the month in our hands
blood on our hands
another woman buried
under the black moon
Nkateko Masinga is an award-winning South African writer whose poetry has been translated into French, Bengali, Kannada and Tamil. Her latest poetry book, ‘Daughter Wound’, was published by Hazel Press in 2024.