GOING TO WORK by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali

I go to work 

for five days a week 

with a thousand black bodies 

encased in eleven coaches 

that hurtle through stations 

into the red ribbon of dawn 

crowning the city skyscrapers.

A commuter mumbles 

like a dreamer muffled 

by a brandy nightcap 

'Brothers, who doesn't know me...? 

I'm a cog in Mr. Jobstein's wheel, 

and Mr. Jobstein is a big wheel 

rolling under Mrde Wiel's oxwaggon.