Member Poem

say we end up as driftwood, maybe as
something from the mainland, maybe the dead body
of a child on the banks, flotsam—and there’s
a child playing with shells nearby—this could be from memory
or premonition, or simply a photograph—and the child
is so old he keeps us in the cataracts and opaque
places oh his eye. he sees at first, he has intuition.
then from shame, a need to turn away, maybe a sense of duty
he has learnt from his mother when his father prays all night,
things he has not been taught but knows,
makes him put us into his blackspot
as in the many ways he has drawn blood and simply walked away.
all this the future and singular subject of his memoirs.
say we are with him, walking, finding our way to a place without prayer.

say we are looking at a lake,
barefoot on a rooftop, Nairobi on our minds.
say am still stuck in ideas of truth, and you,
much older, more experienced, not
so incapable of teaching more than you are of learning,
learning these new colors,
these new toys they are making,
a return to old religions even if we have never practiced any.
they you say: that’s not a lake,
that is a dead blackbird. give me my glasses.
it could be a dead child.

(First published by Peatsmoke Journal)