I get it
on my way
from Site C
to Lansdowne
after a gay
night out.

I get it
on my way
though 2 comrades there
reckon I should be allotted,
papers that declare me
a citizen of the locality.

This given that I roam
so often in the place
and freely too
with not a care
or my worldly possessions.

Welcome to Khayelitsha
my morning welcome
curious to discover
another, the other
legal or illegal,
Us and them.

Peaceably waiting
at a bus stop at 6 am
it is good to see others
he remarks conversationally
as I explain my wanderings
and tell him I am a regular

Welcome to Khayelitsha
on a pre-work-full bus
as I return and will return
again as it is my want,
in the new South Africa
though it’s not yet Uhuru

Never a dull moment
as I wend my sleepy way back from the previous night’s dance-hall
reggae-pop and pop-ragga,
the morning of 31 December 2017.