To all the men and women of Africa who came to the City of Gold, Johannesburg to find the gold was long gone.

She breaks snug locked kinky knots
Comb rips through taut curls
Strands' strength stretched vulnerable
And they blow unsure in the Hillbrow wind
No amount of flinching on my part will stop her job
So I clench my fist into the cell phone in hand
Shift to unplug my ass from the holes in the coca-cola crate
I sit draped in synthetic hair fiber, black wool, scissors and needle
Comb now shoved underneath recoiling roots
Held tight in position to section my afro

She makes small squares as she goes
Warping, weaving clean between her thin fingers
Wefts of new shiny hair tickling my face
But I won't complain of the tickle or the pull because
She won't stop at her job;
Her art is perfection
So I let her continue in now gentle tugging and twisting
Swift whiffs make small light gusts past my ear
And that tantalises my nerves with sleep I cannot have

Beautiful cloth wrap tied at waist over her clothes
Makes me wonder what then impoverishes your country
Was 16 years of civil war not enough to bring your people wealth?
Did not the murdered blood of Samora fertilise the land?
Four hundred and fifty two kilometers
To escape hunger pangs!

Well you'll find, girl from Mozambique
That our hunger is stronger in the city
Stripped butt naked of roots and culture
Our mother tongue scraped bloody off our tongue hair
Caught between religion and ancestral way of life
No more do we even speak to our children
For what do we tell them?
When they'll eventually be forcefully sucked into the matrix

Every day at the door of the Portuguese owned hair-fiber shop
Your hoarse tout fills the air next to the busy honk of dilapidated taxis
Contending for heads of insecure girls that undermine the beauty of their afro
Everyday under the tree behind the drug notorious hotel
You stand bent over head after head
Does that hurt your black woman back?
Will your pretty fingers be arthritic in old age?
Or will this rotten city kill you before you have to worry?

Girl form Mozambique
Do you walk around with CV tucked into your fake passport?
Hoping to find jobs legit and respectable
Yet finding yourself every day with plastic hair between three fingers of each hand
Hopes of making enough Rands to trade for enough Metical to buy a house fast dwindling
Maybe on the clean side of the Mozambican shore
Do you twist and turn at night in the heat or cold of your shack in Soweto?
Laying next to your eight month old baby
Whose father falls asleep on night-duty at his security guard post
What dreams do you have for your child

Well you'll find next to your shack stands mine
I too wondering what food will come my way tomorrow
My poverty deepened each day by the still remaining invisible ink of Apartheid
And I toss and turn wondering what dreams the future holds for me, for my child
I toss and turn and wonder what the future holds for you
For your child, my child
Your child who is my child
For your child and my children,
Does the future hold dreams at all?