Here, these lovers of off-lights lust
These that at night their thighs greedily thirst
From every unlit lounge they buzz and burst
Like termites after finally, the delayed rainfall
Here in Nairobi’s dark side streets after nightfall
Like rain weeds after a long dry spell
Many and in various sizes: big-small; short-tall
Ages and gauges; shapes and shades they boom, they boom!
Everywhere they blossom; from every corner they bloom
Like springs spill and fill of the once frozen fields
From Koinange, Loita, Mama Ngina to Sheikh Karume , Duruma Streets
River-Road, Racecourse, Ronald Ngala to Kîrînyaga roads
Luthuri, Haile-Selassie, Harambee Avenues………
The nights they occupy to wickedly own, like owls all night they hoot
Like blood bats to the night they whistle and corruptly calls
Like gnats and ants after rains en-masse they occupy the night
Corridors and verandas bereft by these genuine traders and tenders
From everywhere they sprout after darkness
Scanty and skimpy covered, naughty and haughty tongued
Their skin-stretch-marked seducing nude thighs hugely exposed
And salacious artificially extended butts tightly-salivating squeezed
In sizes they come to sell their wicked wares, to haggle and hawk themselves
To those like them are thirsty for one nightstand illicit romps
And the business booming goes on in the canopy of the night
To the wee hours of the divine daybreak light
And the wickedness of the night is quickly concealed
By the streak and stream of this new-born sacred strand of light
Then, the streets are left empty except for the hasty walking working
And the lazily waking soot skinned street urchins
