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Loveliest of girls
John Eppel
April 2005

Of all the girls I’ve seen, these, dying,
are loveliest. Lovelier by far
than leaves outside a bedroom window
turning, petals from a vase of bronze,
some drifting to this very page,
even now as I rend my garments
for these dying girls. Slender they are
but not like anorexics, nor stalks.
They walk on the cycle path along
Cecil Avenue or down Flint Road,
cutting corners, joining queues that stretch
like birth; queues for Paracetamol,
for pretty cloth, for paraffin; not
like models with detached pelvises,
nor storks with bloated midriffs, but like
spectres, half-revealed, presentiments
haunting the smug suburb of Hillside,
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, the World,
the fucking Universe. Loveliest
of girls are these, dying; loveliest
of leaves turning; petals on a page.

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