A Tribute to Prufrock...

A brief interlude before an actual update, for fear I may have amoebas for the 3rd time in a month and a half. This is really what happens when I spend a month alone in a village: (with a picture of my latrine included)




The Love Song of Me and My Amoebas

Let us go then, you and I, fuobanda΅ ‘neath this bright sky.
Let us go at morning, noon and night
as in truth, I ate something
which couldn’t have been right.
It couldn’t have been right
at all
oh how should I begin?

We’ve seen kubayans° and births and whores,
handless beggars plead for change,
ten-ton trucks of dunguri¨
with immigrants and splintered floors.

We’ve seen the prayer at sundown
feet to feet.
Learned never trust a rumble
cheek to cheek.
Oh where, oh how should I begin?
And how should I presume?

I’ve been all over these broad streets,
past fast food-huts and alley-ways.
I’ve peered in sewers, shops and mosques
at dawn
to find some clue where you were born,
but find too many
or none at all…
They couldn’t have been right
at all,
Oh how should I presume?

We find ourselves at coffee tables,
hotel bars; in millet fields.
We hear the women pound with unchanged beats,
and marvel at their strength
where we are weak.

As evening falls from hut to hut alike
it finds us sipping tea
with fingers crossed—
you there, and I.
whisper:
This isn’t right,
This can’t be right.
This isn’t right at all.

Oh how should I begin!

We’ve been to cities, watched them eat.
Leaned from rooftops on tip-toed feet:

snails and butter, chocolate spread,
yogurt, beef and cheesy bread.

We’ve inhaled odors strong and sweet,
rich enough to clench our cheeks,
to clasp our hands, jump to our feet!

mutter:

this is not for me at all,
Oh how should I presume?

And so we call to taxis, take us home!
horses, camels, market cars
…we need the safety of the hole!

We’ve heard the donkeys braying
each to each,
seen guinea line the fence tops,
heard them screech.
‘Tween millet stalks of salanga˜ walls:
wind storms, dust storms, no storms at all.

As different shadows bade new shapes to fall,
the hut’s broad arc…
it lures us just beyond.

So let us go at dusk and dawn
and indiscreetly.
Let us go forever, you and I.
For certain moments lead us to believe
eternity will find you
safely here
with me.

And something here just isn’t right,
oh can’t be right,
it is not right at all…
…oh how might we conclude?



΅fuobanda is a polite way to say “the bathroom” in Zarma. Literally it means “behind the house,” as that is where most latrines are located.
°kubayans are birthing ceremonies where you bring money to the baby’s family and then count it together loudly while snacking on various foods.
¨dunguri is Zarma for beans, or more specifically, black eyed peas.
˜salanga is the more physical word in Zarma for “bathroom.”