KM4
9 Reunion
The journalist who doesn’t sleep walks into a bullet.
The young boy with trousers rolled waits at KM4.
Before them both is a door into the earth that swings back
like a cellar door in the last century.
Ahmed Abdi Ali Patrice Andy Bill Rika Zero Idil Yoko
meet in the underworld at The Greasepit Bar
and talk about rotations up to the world of the living:
they come back like Patroclos to accuse dreaming Achilles
of having forgotten and forsaken him,
faithless in death to their companions . . .
The sun compressed to a sliver shines through
the mesh of my mosquito net that holds back
mosquitos hovering like the souls I don’t believe in
of those who’ve died or have gone missing in the wind’s
unsubtle devastations—
but the love of lost companions
brings back wet underwear: socks, T-shirts,
boxer shorts, bras, panties, a dhoti
hung from thorn trees to dry in the dawn breeze.
Contributor’s notes: Tom Sleigh
Contributor’s notes: Michael Hafftka
KM4 Introduction: Poem & Paintings
Artist’s Statement: Michael Hafftka
KM4