Wau

I was sitting in an old 4x4

In Wau, South Sudan
Waiting for my friend
Who was in the market
Looking for a toilet seat

There wasn't another white man
For miles
And I was happy with that

I watched you coming

Slowly, diligently

Old
Beautiful
Impossibly graceful
Dressed in rags

With a dirty rice sack
Picking through rubbish
On the roadside

Bottles and bottle tops I think
Perhaps there were a few shillings
In it

Enough to buy a handful of rice

You came alongside the car
And I scrabbled my pockets
For everything I had

It wasn't much

You took it
And looked me
Straight in the eye

At me and in me

And for that moment
There was nothing
Between us

And everything  

You continued
On your way

I have forgotten
Ten thousand faces since

But not your eyes

I think about them

Every day


John H Davies
17th IX 2026