YWCA, Dar-Es-Salaam, 4/8/03

Dar-Es-Salaam, Place of Peace:
The music last night
in a bare room with small windows:
Rain like musketfire
The ceiling fan ticking like knitting needles
The yelp of the street
The swish of bodies scissoring, unscissoring
under thin sheets

and then: nothing but light
morning, arriving in the midst of night

The air is dry, the rooves and streets dusty
The telephone wires not beaded, dripping
A man hammering on corrugated steel
pauses to think with me - we both agree
there was no rain, but the ghost of rain
rattling the little windows.

A taxi driver hails (for this is the land
where taxi drivers hail you.)
"No rain! he says. "No music!