Haiwezi Kufikiwa
My pockets rattle with shilingi bob, change
from the kibanda where I bought
fresh mango juice and chapati.
My feet dodge the pointed rocks peaking
from the red dirt, heading home.
In the shade sits a woman.
Tiny, piled in blankets despite the heat
that foreigners like me never quite
acclimate to. In her hand is a cup,
her legs seem small for her body, unmoving
in her wheelchair. She’s been here each day this week.
In class this morning, we talked about
words missing from certain languages,
because it’s a word that was never needed
in their history.
In Kenyan mother-tongues,
there is no word for enslaved.
In English there is a word for
One who chooses not to vaccinate their child
from preventable diseases because they believe
organic food will save them. In Swahili, to say inaccessible is to say
haiwezi kufikiwa
It cannot be reached.
Last year Kenyans in a village that neighbors
the largest fresh-water lake in East Africa,
several kilometers from Nairobi where most expats live,
protested the government's rationing of water
because somehow haiwezi kufikiwa
it cannot be reached.
When I arrive home, I gather the bob on my desk
placing it in the front-pocket of my backpack.
When I walk the dirt roads to class again in the morning
my change can greet the woman with polio beneath the shade.
When she stretches her arms out from beneath her blanket,
I’ll quickly drop the bob into her cup, knowing
that each clink the tin mug makes,
even saving every shilingi offered,
there is no solution for missed vaccines,
haiwezi kufikiwa
It cannot be reached.
Skyler Jaye is a queer poet and writer. She's the NF editor of Variety Pack and the author of A Mountain of Past-Lives & Things I've Learned (Blazevox, 2019). She's been published online and in-print including Ligeia Magazine, Ghost City Press, Emrys Journal, and more.
Find her tweeting @SkylerJaye23 (she/her/they/them).
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