Next to the cathédrale in Bamako,
when summer thunder and isha prayers
have imparted two warnings upon the night,
Moussa sets up his pots.
They are four,
ascending in body like collapsed Russian dolls,
and steaming.
Night dwellers anticipate and gather,
and the third warning is the rain that drums down as mbalax.
Moussa!
The boys call his name, not to hasten or to hustle him;
moving as he does in swiftness and commandment,
they know that Moussa may not be encroached upon.
Again, Moussa!
Always he remembers the meek and their place in the congregation.
The lamb ablaze is divided in justice and here the bones do not spell longing.
Moussa!
No, I believe they say his name because they love to boom it into the night
the way a man does when he declares salaam onto a room or a bus.
Basma Osman is a 27-year-old lawyer of Nubian Sudanese descent based in London. A poetry and music enthusiast, she is half of the record label and radio show Hear, Sense and Feel and host of Khartoum Arrivals on NTS Radio, where she likes to explore themes of movement and memory through poetry, storytelling, and music.
