What Could Have Happened
I doubt . . . this is where I find it extremely difficult . . . no government worth its salt plans to massacre its people. No. What could have happened is something went wrong when they were on the ground.
— Bethuel Kiplagat, Chair of Kenya’s Truth, Justice and Reconciliation
Commission, indicted for involvement in the 1984 Wagalla Massacre of
5,000 Somali Kenyans by the Kenyan government
Wa
gal
la
a howl the wind stole
Wa
ga
lla
tongues torn out at roots
wagallawagallawagallawa
a swallowing of children
thrust under thorn bushes
choked on dust
Wagalla
a city of silence
risen out of desert
built of bodies
Source: Poetry (March 2014)