travel guide to a foreign friend

if you come to my african city
and the swollen streets swallow you
and the swollen stories in you,
will you be carefree like a northern bird
whose nest has been blown away
by careless northeastern trade wind?
will you in defiance perch
you and your starched grief on a branch
of that lowlife nest under high tension cables?
(your new home not home enough
to drown your metallic frustration)
will you remain still; ruffled yet resolved
with hope glistening on your beaks, your lips
like that homeless bird
at peace with the furious breeze?
if you come my african city
and steaming turbines of boozing business
evaporates the last pennies left
for your trip back home,
would you again say black skin
paints the red of a heart black
and that there's nothing pure in coal
even though it is kilned red
the colour of burnt bricks
a symbol of love like an enterprise?