Mary?

This is a young girl I met on my travels through western Kenya twenty years ago. We ate lunch at a small village restaurant and I played with her and some of her friends for half an hour before we snagged our next ride. Later, while in Nairobi, I was approached by a woman who might have been her elder sister late one night in a bar. We talked for a few hours, I gave her some money for her time (I declined her first offer), and I wrote this poem the next day.


Promises for Mary (a name she liked that day)

Born with the promise
of hunger and death
the last thing in life she expected
was disappointment

The shining promise
of an educational scheme
paled significantly
once removed
from the classroom

While love
freedom's promise
taught her loneliness
and just how friendly
physical pain can be

So it's up from country
unto the scene
she pedals tenderness
to the broken promise
of yesterday's dream

The soft promise
of a lying smile
sells
in Nairobi