Edge of Africa

by Bryan Murphy

Like a mesmerised fly, a small white car
teases a path along a chameleon
tongue of land, eager to be swallowed
into its city.

The sky blackens like a power cut;
Luanda lagoon seethes like a forgotten kettle.
As the Atlantic approaches the far verge
and the car aquaplanes on the asphalt,

its driver peers toward the city,
his foreign home, distant as the future,
his breathing strained by fear, elated
at this flirt with death by nature

in a land bled dry by civil war.
The tempest loses interest, slams away;
the car staggers along the causeway
to chance its luck in the human storm.