I thought it was want. This self-denying, grateful
bed-pillow rest to sit, undrunk, zonked, photo galleries of you floating past
bleary eyes, like gold fish in an aquarium. So many cups of coffee my tongue
now a “natural” brown.
 |
| Pause |
I thought it was want. This abandonment of chastising vows
in late evening Rubaga Cathedral compound walks, self-mumbling, sometimes
stopping at the brass bands rehearsals, the dusk views into a Kampala where you
live, breathing, sneezing when it became cold, rubbing my eyes. In the bench
pews on my knees, scrapping my joints, looking for the majesty I used to see in
the cathedral windows that I saw that day, talking myself out of turning on my
phone in this holy place to turn on myself. When it would fail, hurrying with
difficulty out, unable to bear a hard-on in front of the holy mother of our
Lord, taking it outside, with threats I would buy an Embassy Lights if it did
not subside.
Come back, my pleas, when I was back home, and stay back
home and stay. You may not be here but my wife would like it, in household
reversal of desires when I’m always too tired from too much office work and she’s
constantly asking if I liked her new silk panties-what is inside is even “better”—
I thought it was want; off the sugared highs of many teas,
cokes, too many longing music playlists, Dominoes ice-creams, emails of rueful
regret, Facebook profile pictures of my hands over yours, James Blunt-Oh God,
James Blunt, & Centenary Park hanging around for accidental meetings of you
with him. all banned, to get this want out of me.
Then I began talking to you in my dreams.
It was not want.
It was need.
I need you.
***** (1:40am)
I got this iPod, like
the one I got you, making you laugh-my thumbs too big on the switch dial, but I
have learned since then, impressing you, even how to keep the ear buds from
tumbling out my bat ears, walking.
I walk a lot, any
chance I get, though I leave the office so late, often with no car, I have
forgotten the mutayimbwa thieves brushes by the I begin walking into song one
of this playlist. Continuing our tradition, loving you to a new song, a new artist,
I promised you he is a major one, you said, “I’ll love him because you love
him, I know...”
A month or so later,
your twitter page blinking up #np She Ain’t You Bei Maejor, u know who u r. Yes,
I did. Our Bei Maejor. No video, no
mass release, not much known. So now Bei Maejor a big part of my playlist &
when I’m walking, past 1 am unafraid, I’m not walking in Kampala but a Javas
for us. I text you sometimes, when I shouldn’t, cracked pavement dodging,
trying not to step on sprawled feet of the veranda sleepers in a city in
darkness and October rains. When I could be mugged, stop smug-boasting, “I have
never been robbed. In fact I have never lost a phone to a thief.”
In the Kampala of
these nights, window standing waiting for your taxi to fill up, teasing, “Kiss
me or I’m going to put my hand through this window and you know where it’s
going to go.” You stifling your alarmed pressing your handbag on your thighs, “Don’t!
Please, don’t. Ok, I’ll give you.” How did we do that? Kiss in the Old Taxi
Park, you inside a taxi, me at your window? How? Walking, after late hours from
the office, Bei Maejor She Ain’t You, yeah, she ain’t you, girl. Unable to
leave the Old Taxi Park that first time, 30 minutes later, on the phone, we
struggling to accept how I could not come home with you, you pleading, “Don’t
load anymore credit, please, you won’t have money for the fare.”
I started to close my
eyes, kissing you. All the way.
Seeing you better,
girl in jeans and black & white canvas shoes. When I opened my eyes, unsure
if I was real, if the ground was still beneath my feet. I was a drink of Gilbeys
in a glass in your hand, your lips softer than any date I have bitten into-I
did not think it was possible.
Walking, I couldn't walk
all this out. I couldn't work it out.
It took your courage, your fingers finding home between mine on the crisis conscience table, "We have what we have. Let us have it."
