Songs of Anisha
“A Rwandan Testimony,”
by Ogaga Ifowodo
How long had you known her?
All my life! We were born a month
apart, made sand-houses after rain
in mud-splattered frontyards,
raced each other half-naked
for the trophy of laughter.
We taught at the same school—
she, history, and I, literature.
You did not hate her?
No more than I hated myself.
So how could you halve her head with an axe?
I had listened all day to the radio.
Leaning on the broken banister of a big
house, staring blindly like an old beggar
at the midday sun—I tried
to give shape to the clamour
in the metal-box of my brain
and left my watch to hack at the lock.
You heard voices and went to kill
your friend and her children?
The night before we had talked in whispers
about the growing pestilence,
we brandished our friendship like amulets
and I bade her goodnight.
In the morning I saw a giant cockroach,
her offspring in tow. And knew
then what the radio had dinned for weeks,
why so many feet danced crazily in the streets.
I had to play my part in the cleansing.
It was that easy—no hesitation at all?
I was past doubt: leave that to Hamlet!
Besides, what does it take to end a life?
a swing of the arm and the hatchet’s in the head
a flash across the throat and a body tumbles
glowing cigarettes tossed at the doused house,
8