Poetry Report: Kenyan Mall

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“He survived
10 months in a Ghana prison
to die at The Mall?”

This one is for Kofi.

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Ted Reads From Current Events


Wait.
They have malls in Kenya?
Malls, you could storm suddenly
with Militants?
Malls filled
with oh my God, like
no way
Mall Rats, like
malls, with
like a Cinnabon?
Like, you mean people are dead
with the smell of cinnamon
drifting about,
in Kenya? Kenya-bon?
Dead at the Cell Phone booth?
Dead at the Jamba Juice?
Dead in front of JCPenny's
with a half-caf macchiato
still on their tongues?
And a Ghanaian poet
named Kofi Awoonor
was one of the victims?
While shopping?
Poets shop?
He survived
10 months in a Ghana prison
to die at The Mall?
Oh my God.
He wrote this?

…He will come out of the grave
His clothes thrown around him;
worms shall not have done their work.
His face shall beam the radiance of many suns.

He was shopping and was killed?
Oh my God, I know nothing

about Kenya or malls or poetry
or blood flowing from shopping bags
across freshly waxed...

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[Photo Credit: 4bc]