ONE THRONE

Easter

i
142 students at a Kenyan university are shot
while I sleep. In the morning the news seeps in
while I prepare an assignment for The University
of British Columbia; sunshine, iris and rhododendrons
outside. Maundy Thursday is a distraction I block out.

Good Friday in my body, a curtain breaks
and I bleed at last. It hurts more than I expect.
Alone in my room, I attend to the pain
in my belly, turn it round and round.
The news of the dead listens to itself.

ii
An American professor of medicine tells a room full
of Canadians about her research: providing
free healthcare education to all that want it. The needy
are always in Africa: she is saving the Sudanese first.

That Tuesday after Easter she tells us how Kenya
has four psychiatrists for its 44 million,
how patients in its Mathare Hospital sleep, medicated
in a field, monkeys goading them from the trees. It’s a zoo,
she says. Disgusting, she says.

iii
Darkness, Thursday after Easter.
I have insulted the kidnappers driving past.
They want the baby in my arms,
send a woman to teach me. I run
through the suburban neighborhood, soles
slapping against concrete. Finding a back alley shed,
I push the flimsy door shut, try to breathe quietly, my baby
sucking his pacifier. But the murderess finds us easily,
pushes the door in, grabs me by the neck, squeezes.
My arms weaken.