Hearts On A Plate

By Donna Nongkhlaw

I can feel the reinforced palisade

around the cracked porcelain heart

I have sung too many serenades

that I am now bleeding water.

Screaming at the fibres of the charade

the silent epilogue

as I glissade in defeated retrograde

this heart now frozen shut.

I yearn not for a do-over

a gloss-over two sets of left feet

for a hollow sale of souls

sold in a market place.

What I yearn for are roses

blossoming from my breath again.

By Donna Nongkhlaw