The Dog in Kivulu

The dog in Kivulu

Thin, bony and yawning:

The dog in Kivulu

Panting and squatting

Like its master.

The dog in Kivulu

Barking at children,

Children who sing a thanksgiving

As they leave the rubbish heaps.

The dog in Kivulu

Running from fat flies

And scratching its tail with teeth,

Biting nothing but its own gums,

Swallowing nothing more than its own saliva

The dog in Kivulu,

Guarding its drunken master

And the hoard of fermenting millet.

Kwete and malwa in clay-pots

But the dog in Kivulu

Liesby, with nothing to drink;

Nobody calls it Acaali, the bitch

It looks on- at the trenches-

And drinks the water from the cattleshed.

 

By Ralph Bitamazire