Recollection

Remember me? I was sprout-thin, then, and browned

like the millet grains

clinging to rapier stalks across desperate fields.

And my glasses were too big for my face. Lalle kam.

And I was a little stiff,

even when the throbbing bongo echoed

off mud-brick walls

like the moon refracting

from the silken curves of myriad sand-dunes,

and you danced your exuberant circles
on hard-stomped earthen floor.
I was such an absurd stranger, iye - until

I came brimming with questions,

and I called you enuwana,

and reached hands like leaves to rain.

Remember me? I'm more sprig than sprout, now, and pale

like the maize kernels

flagrantly spilled on ripped sacks in harvest market.

And I outgrew the glasses. Alhamdullilah.

And these stiff Americans,

whose precise stereos shake

their prefabricated walls

like their streetlights ripping

last threads of suggestion from frigid roads,

are surprised at my bare feet exuberant

on the neutral plastic floor.

And I'm your own absurd stranger, iye, still.

I will always brim with questions,

and call you enuwana,

and reach hands like leaves to rain.