Wedding Day, and: Kin La Belle

Abstract

Wedding Day, and: Kin La Belle Safia Jama (bio) and Gathondu Mwangi (bio) There should have been roses.Instead, I clutched red and whitecarnations my aunt boughtfrom a street vendoroutside the courthouse. I should have invited a fewclose friends, had a party after,but such things aren’t possiblewhen one secret marries another. We got married at 9amon a Monday. My aunt cried the wholeway down to New York on the I-95to watch her niecemarry a stranger. People I’d known all my lifehad let me down, too often. I’m a gambler at heart,and I slapped my heart downon the green table. My father called from,was it, Abu Dhabi? “Do you two realize whatyou’re getting into?” I’m a philosopher at heart.This was my big moment. “How can we know?How does anyone know?” Kin La Belle We pause at the edge of the riverlisten to its rhythmslanguid like lingalahow the waves lap at our feettickle our solesmove them to move then retreat, a soft shufflecha chaisn’t skin membranepermeableas a line in the bluesthe river has a boneasking us to rememberKin la belleLumumbaMulelerebellionor revolution?The all-powerful warriorwho because of his endurance and inflexible will to wingoes from conquest to conquestleaving fire in his wake.These songs caught in its currentsripple to the shoresediment we ingest in our poresefface the edges of water flesh memory— [End Page 51] Safia Jama A Cave Canem graduate fellow, Safia Jama has published poetry in Ploughshares, RHINO, Cagibi, Boston Review, Spoken Black Girl, and No Dear. Her poetry has also been featured on WNYC’s Morning Edition and CUNY TV’s Shades of US series. She is the author of Notes on Resilience, included in the New-Generation African Poets box set (Akashic, 2020). Gathondu Mwangi Gathondu Mwangi is a geography PhD student and writer who spends his time between Massachusetts and Kenya, his home country. He enjoys listening to Congolese rumba, the inspiration for this poem. His work has previously appeared in The Fourth River, Kalahari Review, and Kwani?. Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma