Finding His Fist

Interviewing Nelson Mandela, April 1994

I want to scream into the hearing aid nestled in his ear,
Where is your fist?

Thick-throated men in black coats scurry to the windows of the suite,
scour the landscape with slitted eyes, estimate the arc of bullets.
They move me from one chair to another to another until I am sitting
so close his breath sparks moisture on my skin. The pink contraption,
imitating another flesh, fills his ear and I want to startle, to prickle his
composure, but I see that he is not nearly the vapor I imagined.
I assumed his body would be temporary, with fingers, an ear,
an arm misting into nothing at odd intervals, a leg folding into dust,
his smile its own backdrop, the repeating escape of the recently caged.

He smooths a wrinkle in his gray suit, grins sheepishly,
leans forward waiting for a question.

I stare at his fist resting on the table, ask with my whole mouth.
He hears me perfectly.