I sit in our shanty,
and wait for Saida to return,
she has been gone for awhile now,
and I’m beginning to worry.
Have they caught her too?
Has she got the food?
Is she coming?
It was her turn to fetch
as I watch over our child.

 

Biko is three.
If I add two to his age,
Then I’m able to know how long
We’ve been in these streets;
This is how Saida taught me.
I have to keep Biko as close I can
this would ease an escape in case of an attack.
You never know when they’re coming;
the street mobs and the askaris,
until they tear down your shanty.
At times the bastards just kidnapped
or robbed in broad daylight.
Who do you run to now?

 

It isn’t our wish
that we live here
It is just that we’re in the city
without a home
having found HOME unbearable.

I know she is now at a dustbin
Torso immersed,
scavenging for left over.
Or perhaps at a car pack;
begging at onlookers in their cars.
She’ll be lucky if they dropped a coin or a snack in her hand,
much better if she met a female tourist;
who are more generous.

 

All these she does on toes;
she looks out for the grabbers.
I don’t like their stares
and how they waft their noses at us
As if we’re rubbish.

 

We are you.
Aren’t we the same kids?
Who played in your yard?
Didn’t we school together?
Well life has changed;
the change has thus made us so.
But can’t we return?
To the comfort and love;
we once knew?

 

I tell her
it may be just us two,
in this big city
with so many people,
with a soul.