Imbambazi
Stashed in our wet residual memory,
Mother walks with fast legs,
Like mother hen on sighting an eagle up in the air
For everyone who laughed and called her cripple
……………………to see with their vacant or missing eyes
I am strapped to the small of her back,
Seesawing on her constantly missing limbs
We sort black-eyed peas, dreams, water and life
………………………………..in white donor unisex frocks,
Inside UN-sponsored refugee tents
Finally, Mother trades her missing limbs for searing tears
…………………………………………..at the Gacaca peace tribunal
When they ask her what happened to her children,
Her dam breaks and floods every civil unrest
She tells the Gacaca: if she sits and listens keenly,
She can feel her legs, running from her compound to the jungle,
And no man from her tribe or the others can catch or cut her
She now swings on stilts and uses her stumps to scare the lucky children
Who made it to the camp and made a song about
Her, the talking torso
We scram when daylight hits the camp,
Hidden among machetes, Russian guns, US army boots,
Jungle, broken liquor bottles and Mother’s torn torso
We pray that tonight Mother will be clever
As she sifts beans, dysentery, limbs and bullets, or her life
She will choose us back to life
Just for a moment off the bloody wet jungle floor,
Swarming with blue sapphire, coltan and gold dust French army boots—
Tomorrow.
Homing birds
Hoyoo madam has perfected storms in hot metal tea cups
With the just right cardamom and ginger sugar
Tea crests threaten to scald us all in the avalanche
She sieves and keeps it all in flasks
Golden fires licking brown injeraas with a crusty side
Will be just right with halwa and nyirnyiri for the seating
Her fingers are orange from dyeing grey chins
High on prayers and one rape up for auction
Sandwiched Between Stafrullah and Assalam Aleykum
Going once; to forever hold your peace like it never happened
Because boys will be boys
Going twice; for a life terminated in nuptials
Because our bull strayed and we are here to mend the fence
Going thrice; for thirty thousand Kenya shillings
Enough to swipe the act but not enough for a camel intended for bride price
Since good girls walk in pairs and fetch water before dark for their fathers’ ablution depends on it
Stafrullah
Hoyoos mind is trekking to Baragoi for acacia roots
Because a child begotten in violence, is violence
She will kindle lightning to keep her hands from straying
And her mind from firing in men-business
While the owners of wombs
Stir platitudes in endless cups of tea and nyirnyiri,
She seals my lips with milk cream, waxen fingers that smell of camel milk and spices
She wraps my gultinah tighter lest they trip
The men splayed in kanzus and macaawis
Dividing and licking Halwa they did not weigh or watch set from their fingers
Hoyoos crow feet migrate overnight to the meeting of my eyes and cheekbones
I am a woman now, when I squint I see beyond the Chalbi mirage and into the future
I am dyeing an old beard orange on a Friday in time for Dhuhr prayers
A raped daughter sandwiched between Stafrullah and Asalam Aleykum
Thirty thousand is still a bargain between orange beards without wombs
I know how it feels to be charged in a currency not my own
Subscribe for new writing
Sign up to receive new pieces of writing as soon as they are published as well as information on competitions, creative grants and more.
