The Two Are Not Alike
by Shiloh Phoenix
In Maforay tonight
it is raining
pounding splatters on a tin roof
and the dark is warm wet barrels
full of hopeful promises
that we will plant in the garden
tomorrow
In Reading tonight
it is quiet
cracked sidewalks lining houses
and the dark is yellow paned glass
full of cautious doors
that don’t ever open for
strangers
My soul sleeps soaked
in Maforay rainy season
My body breathes blasphemous
in Reading summer heat
and i am nowhere much
{I’m disintegrated tonight, divided between places where I don’t belong.}
I’m still peeling from that sunburn
by Shiloh Phoenix
The tree today is supple and heavy
laden with the weight of too much rain
but where you are the sun is an
Egyptian god, relentless in his dominion
If I can carry this sunburn
across the Sahara skies
could I bring back my hands
cupped full of water?
Life never works the way I
want it to
and neither do you
oh Africa, with your back turned to me
Once I was yours
now I am a lost memory
swinging slowly in these trees
that are not the same at all
{and its a constant reminder that my world is small – small in the millions of miles}
Lost Souls of Africa
by Shiloh Phoenix
“it’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you”
I once had a friend
just black enough to be called
n****r by strangers in Alabama
but too white to be mistaken
for Senegalese
She left Cape Town years ago
but she’s still tasting the
warm salt of Africa’s ocean
in her dreams
and she told me
even though winters in Minnesota
are bitter cold
they never numb her longing
My brother, black as the dirt
his mother farmed her whole life,
black as the silence about his
missing father, wrote me a letter
from the psychiatric
hospital where they put him, telling me
that he feels like he is losing
his whole self in a war against himself
and he doesn’t know who he is anymore
I replied that California
is where people go to get lost
not to find themselves
Go home, my brother
you are a prince in your own land
though the doctors here have
named you psychotic
To the lost boys of Sudan
I too have watched my workplace
throw out food, and I too have done
the math of how many people
that could’ve fed, and I too have wept
for the stories I cannot tell,
the people who do not know how
to care or even understand
Two years ago I watched
a little white girl
pack up all of her things
and get on a plane to Sierra Leone
but she was too young to know
what she had gained
and what she would lose
or how mirrors never tell
enough of the story
I have never met a land
so alluring as Africa
I have never known a people
so full of yearning
as the lost souls of Africa
Today it is a cool and grey afternoon
in south-east Pennsylvania
and I am gathered with a crowd
of black boys, laughing at each other
in Swahili, wearing skinny jeans and
Nike sneakers while they pore intently
over their English homework
They are too new to know yet
how much they’ve lost
and I will not be the one to tell them
{Opening quote is from “Africa” by Toto}
Grey-Green Rain
by Shiloh Phoenix
Why would you go back
she asks
Isn’t life better here
i smile
Depends what kind of better
Financially
she nods
i shrug
I guess so
but some stuff matters more
her eyes are intent
above the rim of her mask
but i can’t think of how
to explain
the warm freedom of Africa
grey-green rain
i remember
heavy mountain humidity
mango juice sticky
palm trees bent wind
smoky night on red gravel
dust and dust and dust
ashes on the breeze
hunger boiling in pots
whispered songs
starch stiff in the schoolyard
stars enough to bathe in
hot breath sweaty
bus tilted in red mud
roosters’ indignation
choking silt water
bare feet on firm dirt
baoba fuzzy sugar
glass soda straws
ice cream wet plastic
wrinkled skin rough
hope enough to taste
she is waiting
my tongue is wet
full of colour and memories
but no words
