Cosmic Justice

I'm sitting down to consider
Death doesn't exist. She's my One and Only
Unanswered question, if you ignore
Wars, Love and UFOs. And girls.
Dear Cosmic Justice, Are you?
Do you? Have you? Will you? Did you happen to
Come in on the Big Bang Bus, and Are you
Leaving with it?

II
Is it a nigger
or just plain black?

can it die?
does it have a family?
does it smile, and have sex
does it dream of having kids
does it have a face
are its eyeballs hollow
and black-shot
does it wonder what the future holds?

does it catch colds
or speak Dutch?
is it gay
or dour, or bisexual?
does it have a sense of humour?
does it love literature
is it reading this poem?

III
I am the confident denominator
that plants a foot in Indonesia
and the other in Idumagbo
the song whose stanzas
are sung in Baghdad
and whose chorus echoes in Bali
I am the wailing of planes in New York
and of ogbunigwe deep in the navel of Nsukka

I am the vacant stare
in the pupils of HIV schoolchildren
the desolation at the teachers' tables
the silence on football fields
half eaten up by cemeteries

I am the sting of a conscience-less wind
the supersonic-speed of a skyscraper made of water
I am the plum of a car
set daintily upon a cake of human dwellings
I am the arm that clears a beach
for a quick game of wash-the-sand

the modesty of a black newspaper headline
announcing a festival of blood
I am the black and white photos
of multi-colored mourning
and the ignorant smile of a wayward Nature

I am the sphinx whose left arm
is a stinging tsunami
the clock that strikes thirteen
in Belfast, and departs to do the same in Bali

IV
for now we stand, watching
various memorial lists grow longer,
like Simic's woman with the trembling
finger. Our souls are cold and the lists long,
we ride to oblivion on everyday buses
slip through neighbourhood cafes
into eternity's premature embrace…