The Sound of Olatayo

I've known people who were passengers
on high-jacked planes.
They were assholes before they hit Libyan airspace
and probably still are.
I've seen a black man
come out of the sea
like an aborigine -
Mexican sand on his face
and hair twisted into tribal knots
a week after he stormed out
of the Que Pas, a community college diner
where I met Olatayo Sowandi too,
watched him and the other Nigerians
as they listened to the sound
of foreigner's eating.
Not a word between them
and I recall how sweet their silence was
when I was in it with them.
But Mahdi came out of the sea
and I remember how angry he was
when the Arabs at the table,
Saadi Sartawi and his big pipe, Faisal the Libyan, Wassim
the Palestinian brothel owner's kid from Egypt,
kept calling him Abed all the time
instead of just calling him
The Sudan-ee, because
he was not their slave, he was just
from Africa and knew
how to make an impression
when walking out of the sea at Kino Bay.