Selected Poetry by Khayelihle Benghu

Photo Source: Unsplash

A Bird Seller 

Near the taxi rank,

an old man sold birds from rusted cages.

Their songs tangled together above engines,

above bargaining voices,

above the smell of fried bread drifting through noon.

Children stopped to stare.

Women carrying shopping bags slowed their steps.

Even drivers leaned from open windows

to hear the sudden music.

Then one bird escaped

when the old man lifted the latch.

No one moved.

We watched it rise

through the pale Johannesburg sky,

winging itself beyond wires, smoke, and concrete

higher than billboards,

higher than unfinished buildings.

For a second,

the whole street fell silent

as though freedom itself

had briefly remembered our names.

The old man smiled softly

and left the empty cage open.

The Hospital Corridor

At three in the morning,

the hospital corridor smelled of bleach and rain.

A man slept sitting upright

with flowers folded awkwardly in his lap,

their stems bending gently

each time he breathed.

Down the hall,

machines stitched light into darkness

one small pulse at a time.

Nurses moved quietly

between rooms of grief and waiting,

their shoes whispering across polished floors.

Outside the window,

rainwater gathered beneath streetlights

like silver held in open palms.

Somewhere behind a closed door,

someone was learning again

how precious breath can be.

Elsewhere, a child cried once

then stopped.

The man opened his eyes briefly,

looked at the flowers in his hands,

and held them closer to his chest

as though they too

were trying to survive.

Khayelihle Benghu is a South African writer whose work explores memory, loss, and quiet forms of survival through image-driven poetry. Her writing often draws on ordinary spaces, abandoned places, hospital corridors, and domestic objects to reflect on absence, endurance, and human fragility. 

She is active on Instagram at @Khayelihlebenghu.