Crocodiles in Belfast
From “Crocodiles in Belfast & other poems” (San Anselmo Publications, Inc., 2019)
The morning radio reports
another crocodile attacked a woman
in Belfast. She was washing a bucket
to be filled with river water to carry
back home. Two other women armed
with buckets were around. They screamed
and clattered the hollow plastics,
swung them against the crocodile’s sides.
until it released the woman’s leg.
Annoyed, it withdrew to a quieter
part of the river to wait in silence
for another meal. The news
will soon be forgotten
before the woman’s leg heals.
But she will be going back
to the river’s edge
while the drought extends its grip
on the land and the men
of the village go in search
for work elsewhere in Mpumalanga.
Jim Pascual Agustin writes and translates in Filipino and English. He grew up in the Philippines and moved to South Africa in 1994. His work has appeared extensively in journals and anthologies in his country of birth as well as overseas, including New Coin, New Contrast, Aerodrome, Rhino Poetry, Burnt Bridge, GUD Magazine, and Modern Poetry in Translation.
The Oxford-based The Onslaught Press published in 2017 his eighth poetry collection, Wings of Smoke. A new expanded edition of the Philippine edition of the book is forthcoming from San Anselmo Publications, Inc. In South Africa, where he now resides, Agustin Received the DALRO Award (2nd Prize) and the Sol Plaatje EU Poetry Award (3rd place in 2014, and again in 2017).Email him at jim@voxpopuliph.com
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