POETRY

I Am the Fire

By William Khalipwina Mpina     VOLUME 56 No. 2

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I am the fire that danced on green leaves.
Only one person saw me and hid his face.
The fire that is me cannot be looked at
twice without removing shoes--
I am the fire inside a political pot.
I love that space, that emptiness
dangling and swaying left and right.
I am the fire sitting in your heart
waiting for any jealousy then
to bring a feeling of brokenness.
I am the fire roaming in podiums
to burn that peace, that stability.
I am the fire, that bush fire
that burned the green lamina
unseen but felt, untouched but hot.

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WILLIAM KHALIPWINA MPINA is a poet, fiction writer, economist, and data analyst for Malawi Revenue Authority. His works appear in a large number of international journals and literary magazines and in over ten local anthologies. He did his university education at Chancellor College, University of Malawi in Zomba, where he was a member of Chancellor College Writers’ Workshop between 2011 and 2015. He is co-editor of Walking the Battlefield, a bilingual poetry anthology on Covid-19, and Tilembe Newsletter of the Malawi Union of Academic and Non-Fiction Authors. Mpina’s books include Mooning the Morning (2022), Princess from the Moon (2020), Shattered Dreams (2019), Blood Suckers (2019), Shadows of Death and Other Poems (2016), Namayeni (2009), and Njiru (2003).


VOLUME 56 No. 2