Legitamacy

On the difficulty of writing from the other person's perspective

Legitimacy – plea from a sympathetic observer

Please may I crawl inside your skin
or for a moment be
the dirt under your finger nails;
the knot of hunger in your empty gut;
the eye strain while you struggle by poor light
homework to write.
Or could I be the backache born in silence
while you shoulder your life’s burdens?
Or carry water home.
‘Cause though I champion your cause with passion,
though, as a woman, I too have been oppressed,
known poverty, of spirit, been dispossed.
It’s relative, relative to me and not to you;
and so, I cannot know.
Please may I crawl inside your skin
or for a moment be
Someone who speaks out for you,
with some legitimacy.


Sandy Wetton                                                  Cape Town, January 2004