Hi Harlem #4

#4 Revolution Books

You are Ngugi wa Thiong’o! You are my O
Level textbook, the river between Nyambura
and charismatic Waiyaki.

When you rejected the oppressor’s language
in favor of your native tongue, Gikuyu, you
made this would-be writer

sweat over if he should follow your example.
He couldn’t, for he received praise for his As,
Bs, Cs from his teachers.

Good-bye, Ngugi. He’d thank you, if he could.
He is a young man still star-struck by authority
sanctified by sacrifice.

I’ve locked him up in solitary, so he can’t speak
to others, starved him, beaten him once or twice,
but he won’t die. Nor I.

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