Fiona Cartwright

LOCKED IN THE COMPOUND

The power’s out. We’re trapped in the house
by men who follow us down the street

their voices a mosquito whine
of Come ride my motorbike, baby.

It’s been dry for months: I’m washing my hands
in water thickened with dust. I peel

my bra’s wet pelt from my skin, discard
its sourmilk stink, drop to my bed

in the afternoon to sleep it off.
By nightfall
I’m done with the effort
of squeezing through this congealed heat.
I can’t eat.
You call from the garden door
to the indigo dim of the sky. Nightjars!
you shout.

They come from orange-stained street trees
to the square of air above our compound

weaving their prey’s trajectories
with flight. We stand still

as they honeycomb the dark, alchemising
flies into the feathered bats they are, a spin

of chaos, a spirograph of flight, a map of sated hunger
they draw in moped-choked air.