the artists could be gangsters, the poets the conmen,
we drink together in this haze, always willkommen,
B says,
Esther’s is a small space,
with those childhood curtains our mothers loved so much,
an old & broken radio on a stand, the air harmattan.
a neighbor plays old bongo and we listen
the way we have always listened,
the conversations are odd, between friends,
old animosities about definitions of art,
while we all know money is what artists fight about.
I sit in a corner and drink my cham,
I’d like some water. there’s none. this is a house of men.
Esther’s reminds me of my father,
times he took my hand, showed me all those great dens
of his glory days. he sold fantasies to a kid with no imagination.
at least the radios worked then. Buju Banton & Capleton.
here, there’s no time for memory or regret or any feelings
of shame, or nostalgia, or experimenting. no looking back.
to start something with someone I want to impress
I mention I’m reading Delany’s Hogg.
but they do not speak my language.
another shot on me, what’s forty shillings between friends.
& at last, James, I come back to you,
back to the soft grace of those arms.
no matter. touch here does not exist.
you dream your dreams, I mine.
an ascension to a place that resembles homes
we have come to disagree on, like definitions
of ragga and dancehall.
Clifton Gachagua is the author of Madman at Kilifi. He writes from Nairobi.