fattest flies
fattest flies
By Ronelda Kamfer
there is a new breed
of vintage-wearing brown girl
who used to straighten her hair
and only spoke English
who had Foschini accounts
and only rode first class on
public transport
the type who had a boyfriend
when boyfriends were burks
the type who took offense
if I scanned something in error
behind the till at Clicks
the type that kept the
light skin gene in the family
that protective coloration
so prized by Coloured people
the type who believed that
au pair in Europe
is a title
the type that married
old, unattractive white men
because ambition has
bank account and it needs
to be filled
until the millennials went online
and everyone retired their GHD’s and Sheen straighteners
and bought their way back into the ghetto
they replaced their Johnny Depps with Idris Elbas
and made Michelle Obama Lupita Nyong’o and Grace Jones
their women of strength
everybody knows an Alice Walker quote
everybody listens to a Jill Scott
and supports a consciousness movement
they’re on trend
they’re Instagram feminists
they protest in the blogs
they use words like booty fierce and pro-choice
they deconstruct every American TV series
and they are
almost without exception
dumb as shit
whenever they get under my skin
I always remember my mother’s words to me
after one of them made me cry
because I wasn’t pretty
those skanks are like frogs in the rain
they hop from leaf to leaf
closer and closer
to the freshest turd
because that is where all
the fattest flies are found
Ronelda S. Kamfer was born in 1981 in Cape Town, South Africa. Her poetry has been published in Nuwe stemme 3, My ousie is ‘n blom, and in Bunker Hill. Her first volume of poetry, Noudat slapende honde (Now that sleeping dogs) was published in 2008 by Kwela Publishers. It has won the Eugène Marais Prize in 2009. She is currently writing her first novel, Kompoun about farmworkers in the Western Cape, where she is from.