Saba Saba in the Suburbs & Other Poems – Gathondu Mwangi

Saba Saba in the suburbs

For the Kenyan youth injured and killed in the protests of 2024-25. 

There were morning glories
forget-me-nots, yesterday today
tomorrows, leaves, branches
everywhere, hues and shadows

Blank as sunlight. Up ahead
a young man in a tan hoodie
lay still on the street. Cracks
on the macadam 

Spread like capillaries around him. 

We stopped talking
about our not talking 
saw his breast catch
in the gap between breaths. 

Blackjacks on his chin, his brow.
How did they know when to hold on,
when to let go
                             in this city of dust,
this city that longs to be swamp
again. 

We walked on, afraid of the questions,
afraid of the answers. The scent of endings,
faded promises, posters, mingling with frangipani.

Fit

My dad was already a granddad
when he started to study geometry
again.

Monday mornings
he would sit at the table
pull out a textbook and work
through the formulae by hand.

“It’s important to know
how things fit together,”
he said.

Circle and asymptote, tangent
and plane, the concave parabola
of one palm pressed into another. 

Each a problem to be solved. 

Long ago, he encircled
our mother in the interlocking
arcs of his arms 

and then he let go.

Irrigation

Black buttons tucked into the earth
blossom in sprays

sprinkle thick drops on sullen
flowers, pink and white stains

strewn across the lawn
these colours will slowly fade

leach into the sod
seep into the blue

waft past sagging overhead
cables, heavy with the internet

rumours, politics
a pair of takkies

strung up in the sky
as if to trace a boundary

separate wind
from shifting wind

gust from gust
beginning or end

of air.

Gathondu Mwangi is a Kenyan-based Geographer and writer. His work has previously appeared in New Contrast, The Worcester Review, World Literature Today, The Weganda Review, the Ecobloomspaces anthology, among other publications. 

*Image by Storyzangu Hub on Unsplash