Two Poems from Kigali

Been a while since I posted 'stuff'. So, in a change from my usual theme of goblins and fairies, here's a couple on Rwanda:

The Man with no Arms and no Legs

My French friend Martine in Nyamirambo;
I visit her sometimes.
The first time and the second, and many after that
I arrive on the steep cobbled street
I pay the moto and turn up-hill towards her house
There, in front of me, I see a man
Walking.
He is about hip-height to me, swaying effortfully side-to-side
On account of having no legs and no arms.
His kneecaps are strapped into threadbare flip-flops with lengths of cloth as padding.
His elbows push the invisible half of themselves forwards and backwards
As though clutching at the railing of wind that will fill his sails and bring
This exhausting climb
To an end.
Up, up he goes
And on, on I stride; tall and strong and complete, towards my friend’s door.
The first time, and the second, and many after that
It sticks the back of my throat
Not because he has no arms and no legs.
Home, where I’m from, a birth defect perhaps. Thalidomide.
Here, I know that somebody has physically held him down
Face pushed to the dirt floor
And hacked off the parts his mother gave him.
Perhaps he passes them every day on his long, steep climb, to the top
Of a long, steep hill. 

Moto Mania

The tilt of evening when the warmth of day and night’s bite kiss lips
I sit pillion upon the back of a public motorbike, legs wrapped around
A man in green waterproof tunic and green helmet
The numbers 1547 printed in yellow
As we glide through the twisting rivers of road between my home
And my friend’s.
Half a city away, half a city to go
Arms folded in front of me, not clinging to my driver
Attracting social scorn in the way of unknowing tourists
Nor clutching at the bar behind in the way of nervous people
But folded neatly between my chest and his back, in the way of locals.
Each day I take a dirty, dusty, bumpy moto ride to work
But this, this is an adventure. Tonight I am a Queen gliding
Her dragon-winged beast through the stellar universe
To Sun City Hotel.
Traversing the worlds between my house and hers:
The warm balmy air of Kisimenti where we weave between
People invisible in the dark, and the dazzling headlights of oncoming vehicles
Then to the silent, deep voids of the lowland marshes where
Thick blankets of white mist lie still and silent as an eerie lake
Skin once sweaty and glowing, now rough with goosebumps.
But nothing surpasses the wonder of Nyamirambo itself
The Muslim quarter, paved with hair salons and clothes shops;
Part of the city that never sleeps.
Although I love to look, I love to close my eyes
Guided by all the smells of this nocturnal stretch:
Popcorn, car fumes, ripe pineapple, goat meat
Sewage, mud, warm brick and incense sticks.
I love them all, this mélange of city scent –
The sweet, the bitter, and the indefinable.