you won’t find lime, oranges, nor breadfruits:
but an array of black bodies carted away
from their homes by local chiefs, awaiting
to be handpicked like cotton by colonizers
for trinkets or tuxedos or empty promises.
the black market: after each good sale,
they stocked them inside a barracoon
readied for desolated seas.
mouths of slaves shut with manacles, shut
against the outburst of myths & folkloric hymns
sung & hummed under a delighted moon.
at Point of No Return shouldered by water,
austere water; they lined them up, hands & feet
chained, eyes holding ominous dried tears.
halfway into the walk to the waiting ships:
tired slaves drank from Attenuation Well
where memories, like salt, dissolved at the shore.
i wonder what beat in their frail hearts as
they waded through the sea—nothing but transient
guts. comrades tossed overboard like jetsam.
epitaphs etched on the heads of rebelling black fathers.
what is history but a regurgitation of forgone dreams?
it cleaves me open to anger, to angst.
This poem emerged as the 1st place winner of the 2024 Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry
Please click here to view the full list of the winners and to read their stories
