We name our bodies / anything that means to
gather / flock into belonging
into the tamarack wood / into the mouths / of the
January where I left
the fruit to rust / we stumble into our blood / wild
animals yoking together
an inheritance / this country of unrest / where loss is
shade beneath
every cracked tree / terror each time lightning /
embosses the fields rippling
smaller on my tongue / we name our bodies /
before they are unnamed
by the grassland smoke / & the feckless eyes / of
those who mark us
with an x / this winter country / its season of
amaranthine oranges
& tender mangoes / I eat the pith & boil the rinds / I
hope the ghosts
of mother tongues / transpire in the vapour / I am
drawn to every scattering
syllable / stammerings of Kutchi / & coifs of clove to
split the sweet
of this memory / this version / an imagined Dar es
Salaam in a story
passed down / we collect the fragments / gather
together blanks
& birch / judge our own belonging / this dream is a
basin
of other
dreams / longing slips through like words / my
tongue is a sieve.
Photography by Safari Ombeni
