Tumaini –– (Swahili Verb) Hope, to want something to happen.

Here, where hope is tumaini are animals everywhere, everywhere animals.
Horses on the cigarettes.

Rhinos on the matches.

Water buffalo nickels jingling around in your lizard stamped coin purse.

Do you have a rhino to light my horse? Animals as currency.
You never forget the elephants on the beer.

You owe me two alpha male silver back gorillas. Animals in the decals on the vans.
Animals painted atop broken down toilets, peaking out from the murals on every third wall.
Fish out of water on the coins. Theres something in water and its animals, animals, animals.

Tumaini, you wild whisper of hyena laughter,
at least the sun is still on our side or so it seems
from its uncomplicated distance where
it holds tight to its predictable schedule.

Tumaini, tumaini,
I hold tight to you in whatever language you come,
tumaini in the huts that were hit,
where parents lay beneath gardens of nepi grass,
feed for the cows,
grandparents whose grandchildren have become their own children and
tumaini to dim the sunlit sorrows illuminated by your light,
illuminate our fight so that your gaze may pass
like the breeze through these earthen walls and
whisper a smile to our sun dried hearts.