Maps 

Come with me, let’s go places

where my friends and I used to sit

as I watched them cut lizard tails until the moonrise.

​

Or where we’d go to pick flowers

until the tips of our fingers turned ripe green

and stank of manure.

​

Or where we played with marbles

digging sticks into the soil to make a pit

for landing

​

Or to the shop that made every single one of the coins we saved

where we hang up flyers for the gospel concert.

​

If you can help start a fire we can trace the dangling stars

and dip into the waters where we swam until our eyes puffed up

like toads

​

Or go up the mountain everybody calls home

wearing different shoes like the one my friend gifted me 

as I blew fifteen candles on the chocolate cake we ordered

from a bakery which closed shop:

tough and reliable, four wheel drive of a shoe, Timberlands.

Wrapped inside a box, tied with pink ribbons.

​

Or we can go near the oasis

sit under the doum trees with their long arms, bearing gingerbread palm fruit.

​

Let me fetch my old atlas and we can doodle the maps in pencil

draw close to the ocean

and imagine what it’s like to live on the beach

rapt by the soughing shores

calling us to collect seashells

as colorful as chameleons

faces in the sand, hiding in our grasp.

​

                                  The whole world in our palms. 

​

June 25th 2024 (for the fallen)

 

i am thinking about a flag

flying without a hoist

 

heavy is its shield covered in blood

coloring asphalt

cold in the sun

​

mourning comrades

choking on tears

blinded by white clouds

and red

flowing

from black

​

bodies

scratching at burning skin

itching their eyes out

​

as we watched

faces crowd the headlines

our children our youth

bled by the long, sharp spears

of police brutality

​

charity begins at home

and heads to church to

tumefy the envelopes of officials

​

and shroud them in innocence

during offering

​

arms of greed in green

aim the barrel of doom

at the iris of the people

​

Boom

​

A flag blowing in the wind

the last thing I saw

and blood sealed that memory

​

reports of the weather*

on a Tuesday afternoon

in Nairobi

were bullets raining down in a blink 

one black letter day.

​

In memory of the lives we lost.

 

*Weather: “the weather is the total climate; and that climate is anti-black.” Christina Sharpe, In The Wake.

​

Rafiki is a Person

Rafiki in a subway after dark. Penny face of the moon hiding under clouds.

Falling in the cracks. To be found in the morning.

​

New as the news. A long list of names for Rafiki.

Like unalived, Black youth, departed. Rafiki is a person you miss.

​

In Moonlight, Black boys look Blue. Blue

in the cold hands and fingers of shame. Rafiki I once knew.

Forced into a box. Stuffed with balled socks.

Black or Blue, I still miss them.

​

What is a terrorist? The Oxford dictionary defines a person

who uses unlawful violence and intimidation

especially against civilians in pursuit of political aims.

A person, it defines, as a human being. Rafiki is not defined by their kisses. 

​

And for Rafiki, tomorrow is nowhere close to earth or heaven.

A place far away from hell. Between starshine and clay.

Where the story remains. Rafiki means a friend.

No room for breathing. For person or terrorist.

 

— Elegy for Edwin Chiloba.