“Matobo Hills” by Tsitsi Jaji

Here lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes, Colossus.
Land-locked, rock-clad in dolomite, as he willed it.
Cairo would not have him; he would not have the Cape.

Here Rhodes lies, dead as diamonds.
No one digs him up. No one salutes, Bayete.
The view is wasted on him.
 

Tsitsi Jaji is a Zimbabwean American, and grew up in Harare before moving to the U.S. for college. Her first poetry chapbook, Carnaval is included in the collection Seven New Generation African Poets and she was awarded an honorable mention in 2015 for the Ron Sillerman Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Madison Review, Black Renaissance Noire, Bitter Oleander, Illuminations, ElevenEleven, Poetry International’s Zimbabwe page, and the Center for Book Arts Broadside Poetry Series. She is also the author of a scholarly book, Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and pan-African Solidarity (Oxford UP, 2014). She teaches at Duke University.