Zero

I am parenthetic
images...

One

photostat of photograph:
Julia
posed behind roses
frozen at a precise moment
no longer now.
Above which
a folded chit from Thomas Cook's
(the French side facing me.)
I make out perhaps
one word in three,
understand nothing.

Bantu Holomisa's forehead
right eye, eyebrow and ear
made of printed dots
Weekly Mail, price R1,50
peep out from under
a folded printout of my
my telephone list.

Two

The tablecloth is blue,
Vijay Creations
Louis Trichardt,
has a pattern of leaves and flowers
bordered in cyan litmus pink.

(printed at a precise moment,
by certain workers' hands
in an economy of want and greed,

(How was the cloth traded,
was the thread spun, who
worked
and how much were they paid,
who lived well by it
and who badly?

(Were we there and
was this the way we
wanted things to be?

The weavers are still
weaving
or they have gone
or gone bankrupt
and others weave.
Likewise the spinners.
Wages are paid and unpaid.

Everything runs together:
The image of Julia,
(this cloth she bought
with money earned
teaching English to...

the cloth
printed by hands
which flow together into other hands.

three

The technology to sustain this table
Printing, papermaking, electronics,
plastics, communications, spinning,
weaving, fabric printing, publishing,
packaging, transport, roadmaking,
public works, mining, chemicals,
electricity, petroleum
forestry, carpentry;
the workers who feed and operate
assemble and create,
at this precise moment
on the blue cloth.