Magma Poetry

As if I could go back to the whitewashed house in the forest,
walk up the driveway to the clearing

it sheltered in, bend to pick a stalk of grass from the lawn
then wander in through the front door,

find the ladder-backed rocking chair
in the spare room: rub the smooth knot on its arm.

As if I could walk out to the kitchen veranda, have
the cool touch of evening on my skin,

come across Mwamburi and Stephen out the back

squatting round embers eating posho;

as if, by taking some, I could roll the sticky flecks of whiteness
into a ball and swallow it: the way I learnt Swahili.

As if Swahili were a language I could still live in:
the house and the forest still there now.