Sonnets

Context — Serializing. More to come.

1.
A slender girl named Stella once did live
among acacia thorns and ng’ombe poop,
in Tanzanian hinterlands that give
all foreign guests mobbed baboons in a troupe.
But in this verdant, fertile land of green,
marked by bustards, storks, giraffes, gazelle,
and lions, warthogs, vervet apes thieving,
our dearest Stella found herself unwell.
The kids at school, like monkeys, cheated, stole,
and pushed her to the side when eating lunch.
Her sucked-up praise and attempts to extol
their virtues failed on this brutish bunch.
Post-class one day, and distanced from the crowd,
our Stella pondered friendlessness aloud.