Divide and Misrule

What does dug earth care at all about ethnicity?
A Mwangi fits a six-foot hole
as snugly as Owuor.

And tell me, where's the corpse that anyone
can teargas with success?
Or did you do it to augment the tears of mourners,
out of kindness?

Can you tell a foe from how he skins a cow
or peels a spud
or guts a fish?
Are these enough to skin his hide?
Perhaps it's speech, the way she shrubs?
And who's the carrier, his mother or his dad?
Can we locate the gene for Enemy?
Today, can we condone the fact
Kikamba's only got one word for 'enemy',
'Masai'?

Reflect: that family you killed,
it had as little land as you.
Or did you see the old machete used to cut you?
Dented, rusty, cheap, like yours.
Reflect on this.

This warped deflection of your anger
isn't justice:
it's a coffinful of shit.

*Stephen Derwent Partington is a Kenyan poet.

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