If Nehanda could one day walk down First Street
And watch our sisters like crazed animals snarl for beer
And hear their untamed laughter
If she could watch our women
Shamelessly trade their body wares on pavements
While they trudge the streets like vampires at midnight
If she could watch them bear sons and cast them down the drain
Date millions of men and marry none
I'm sure Nehanda would weep and seek cultural redress.

If Mapondera could pace down the same street and
Watch homeless toddlers play house
Jobless youths loiter aimless in avenue bars
Hear the intoxicated laughter of glue-crazed children
Hurtling debris through cafeteria windows
If he saw tattoos, ill-fitting garb, queer hairstyles
And watched old men swing to modern grooves
And heard them curse and swear in foreign tongues
Mapondera would wheeze and raise a war chant.

If Chaminuka prowling down Chitungwiza lanes
Counting the wretches and homeless beggars
Sees a family of twenty tucked into one bed-kitchen-live room
Saw fathers desert their families
Children pass elders without a word of greeting
Teenagers sporting oversized pregnancies
Mothers bitching in front of their sons
Doubtless Chaminuka would pass out with mortal shock.