The Song I Never Learned
Thandi NkosiThe song comes back the second I sit still,some chorus from a year I can't quite place —I never learned the words, just how they feel.
It finds me washing dishes, at the sill,or stopped at lights, my hand against my face.The song comes back the second I sit still.
My mother hummed it, working, by the till,her voice gone thin with love and lack of grace.I never learned the words, just how they feel.
Some tunes are built for memory, not skill —they don't need lyrics to hold down a place.The song comes back the second I sit still.
I've tried to search it out, against my will,to name the thing that keeps me in her trace.I never learned the words, just how they feel.
I've learned to let it come. Perhaps that's skill —to hold what calls you from a vanished place.The song comes back the second I sit still.I never learned the words, just how they feel.