Saliha Khan

Isaac and Eve started as an unrequited love at work. They were both RN’s. Eve’s speciality was in psychiatric and palliative care. Isaac was a midwife. Strange for a man but he had a kind of tenderness no man has ever possessed. Eve was extremely intelligent, a precocious child. She fell pregnant with Isaac’s baby 7 months after they met at Paarl Psychiatric. They swore nothing would happen between them but when he kissed her on June 16th one night on nightshift, her whole being shifted. She was sarcastic, hard-headed, ambitious, Isaac’z kiss humbled and… I guess, humiliated her. He has intense untreated ADHD. She found him to be a bit stupid and childlike. She never imagined she’d carry someone like that’s child. They were in the Sluice room washing bedpans, of all things. Isaac smelled the Chlorhexidine on her forearms. It smells faintly of roses, it shares that colour, too.

Perhaps I'll go to Paarl Colour my hair Red Delete WhatsApp and Tyme Cape Town makes me tired There I'm found, I'm found In my Father's house I can be 16 again... They had a mid-Spring wedding Mine was in Autumn It's a culture shock here in the city Here I'm lost, I'm lost I cannot get a grip with my blurry eyes All of the lights... I have Annie but I need my mother's heartbeat Living 45 minutes away is just that kind of pain All the time and every day Yes I have Rif'aat and Especially, of course, my boy, Joe But not having Hamid around is so... Unfair, I feel cheated over and over again So perhaps I'll go to Paarl Colour my hair Red Delete WhatsApp and Tyme Cape Town makes me tired There I'm found, here I'm lost I need the familiar living room table My father sat at the head of The feeling of the comforts he left In my Father's house I can be 16 again...

Epiphany. Epiphany, how nice of you to meet me in solitary solitude, How nice of you to sow my sorrows like seeds And watch them manifest as trees... How nice of you to come to me And coax the birds from my trees, To make me watch them leave their nests As 1 pray and hope that they do their best, To make me laugh as they learn to play alongside the bees And to watch me cry as they scrape their knees. Epiphany, Epiphany, you're blue-eyed and at a distant distance And I still wonder how you are But you have made me take a stance, It's so nice of you to let me be And encourage Time to teach me Of all the ways of scraped knees Of bee stings and all those worldly things. Epiphany, Epiphany, you have come to know me, Taken my hand and led me through your gardens of wisdom. Through your enlightening Eden, Epiphany, Epiphany, through all my life, where have you been, To come to me now and make me begin again?