I drive over the spot to celebrate and mourn,
the same way you scatter soil over a coffin
before they cover it and leave you to collect yourself.
I thought the scar could not fade, even while they recarpeted
and paved and drained and lit the road to the UN.
I wish I had a picture of the hole to show, to remind myself,
because the story will be dull next week. Suddenly

it seems possible that Ngong road will become a dual carriageway,
that the pothole-cum dam opposite St. John’s Church in Pumwani,
on the California side just inside the T-junction will, in my lifetime,
lie under gleaming tarmac – no longer a marker for motorists. If I possess
some clout on that day, I shall like to name the street  “Old Calif Dam Way,”
so it will be possible to tell and retell the story.

The bathroom loo had a wonderful flush,
a properly old school bowl and tank
and the tub, in its own room,
imagine a bath without the knock
of a belly full of pee cutting in

Outside was a garden of fully grown trees,
no matter they give nothing to eat.
Oh the peace that rests in these five homes,
in a neighbourhood where men build fifty
to tower high. Bliss is knowing that whatever
they dream, peace is intact here.

We catch our breaths and notice that just ahead, at the place where the road from Nairobi West meets the roundabout, there is a policewoman who has detained another matatu, and is hauling ours to a stop beside her catch. The man beside me has now found his tongue and is loudly telling the driver what a basic mistake of driving he has made, in neglecting to give the car in the roundabout her right of way. He speaks as he prepares himself and the rest of us to leave the matatu in protest and in readiness of the driver’s impending arrest and the matatu’s detainment.

The rest of the tale is an anticlimax. The driver comes out, goes to the front to chat with the policewoman, hidden from us by the bonnet of the vehicle. The “chat” takes less than 30 seconds- because it takes the man next to me longer to get off the matatu. The policewoman asks him why he wants to leave, he responds with disgust and the matatu is on its way. I am aghast at her lack of shame, because clearly something must have been exchanged. We proceed. I remain in my seat. Lord knows it took me lots of walking and a bit of luck to find the matatu when i did. If i leave it here, goodness knows when i’ll find another.

Our three bodies, the body of the passenger, the driver and the police officer are at fault, and because of the three of us, it shall take this country so much longer to behave. The man who left and was not afraid to say that some wrong had happened, and act on his knowledge; he shamed the rest of us, whether we registered it or not. The rest of us chatted incoherently amongst ourselves or sunk our heads into our books and prayed we would get home safely in spite of ourselves.

is Jacaranda trees in bloom 
blissfully blue, bold, edging
toward lavender gladness.
When the rain falls, as we hope,
the flowers fall.

It is not tragic,
stomping on them on Kenyatta Ave
delicately and joyfully–

we hope the ritual will make us 
blissful while blue, even decidedly bold.

I think the architecture continues to be pretty cool.

…