Shailja Patel

I doubt . . . this is where I find it extremely difficult . . . no government worth its salt plans to massacre its people. No. What could have happened is something went wrong when they were on the ground. — Bethuel Kiplagat, Chair of  Kenya’s Truth,  Justice and Reconciliation Commission, indicted for involvement in the 1984 Wagalla Massacre of 5,000 Somali Kenyans by the Kenyan government Wa gal la a howl the wind stole Wa ga lla tongues torn out at roots wagallawagallawagallawa a swallowing of children thrust under thorn bushes choked on dust Wagalla a city of silence risen out of desert built of bodies

was it so I could never say across a courtroom that man, the one standing there was it so you could walk among us again after as if you had shed the body that did those things was it because you could not bear my pupils so huge they would have swallowed you my whites like flayed kneecaps when you pressed down to singe them back into my skull they were softer than you expected you had thought them diamond hard weapons turned on you was it so you could imagine a time when you would be human again among humans that you had to leave some of us alive?