mosquito-dreams of blood in tanzania

i had a dream from which i woke
bitten badly foot and ankles agony
this dream i bare of chest and foot
and dark of sun and dirt had reached
a place i thought of reconciliation
understanding all and here my friend
with me filthy garbed was throwing
coins up in an alley in a slum
upon the empty balconies of the poor
who struggled here for why he asked
in silence did he have so much
and they so little i as well appealing
reaching in my pockets found some bills
some small and one one hundred
saw a man half-blind with lesions
leaning on a cane went up to follow
his example giving up my bill at last
i faltered there and couldn’t choose
between the bills but the hundred
had already been seen and avarice
lit his leprous face and so it spread
from eye to eye infectious in the street
and all now gazed upon my hand and skin
gone milky white again they saw and so
i gave it up of course but void of joy
did i then learn a coin is something else
and as he leant to press a leprous kiss
upon my brow i in lonely falseness
stripped of personhood reduced
back to bitter turned my cheek away.