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What if Adam,
Had been created female?
Then maybe men too would have had the chance to savour the pleasures of child labour
And a tender bosom for an eternal companion…
What if
From Adam’s rib, slender and healthy,
Almighty had instead wrought a snake-ress
Then maybe, instead of just seduction,
Copulation too would have followed closely,
So Adam may have snake-lings to cuddle
In paradise…
What if,
The serpent of old hadn’t succeeded in
Seducing the woman;
Then maybe Adam’s sons today would not
Break a single sweat in seeking utmost glee
For skirts would never shroud paradise
What if, God had chosen for his original nation, not the bloody Jews
But a group of Batwa, neither scribes nor great story-tellers,
Then, maybe then, tales of a Black Christ
Would soon be going extinct with them
What if the earth were not a ball of curve
But rather a square with edges
Then maybe black men too,
Would have a corner they would call their own,
And it would river with peace, foam with liberty
A little cosy piece of paradise
What if,
Of Obama’s parents,
It had been his mother who was African,
Then maybe the leader of the free world
Would have been bred just over Kogelo,
And Kenya would have had herself a mulatto President…
What if tomorrow,
The sun took her long awaited vacation
To a summer spot in the Bahamas,
Then maybe we’d all for once
Get to have a good-day’s sleep
And a full day’s sleep too…
What if,
At independence Uganda hadn’t been named so,
Then maybe the mighty Buganda would today be Africa’s first world country,
And the rest of us,
Finally free men…
What if Sir Edward had been a Nabagereka?
Then maybe the only fire-baptism to rain upon the Lubiri that fateful 1966 night
Would’ve been the romantic flames of a premier seeking a royal Muganda Lady’s hand in marriage…
What if all the white men suddenly turned black,
Then maybe I’d march north to Oxford,
And finally claim my seat too in a decent classroom.
What if,
What if I stopped here?
Solomon Manzi is a member of The Lantern Meet of Poets. Watch the performance of this and other poems at their recital: Lantern Meet & Friends this weekend at the National Theatre. There will be shows on Saturday 28th and Sunday 29th at 7pm. Entrance is Shs10,000.
See you there?