Night Birth at Kalma, Darfur My womb tightens. Barking men roam the camp, . . . I go on because I go on. I labor . . . hiding from men who drooled and thrust me into the dust for five days. Why, God, am I birthing another? My children are folded asleep at my shoulders. Dirt moons under their toenails, camp mud stuck to their feet— for them, I am going on. Footsteps of men . . . I go on because I go on because labor doesn’t stop till it expels another child’s already muddy feet. Governors with silk clothes can’t know this just existing, this feeding one child over another, or just struggling to go on. . . My children’s cheeks are valleys. They sleep around me in piles. Tightenings of womb, barking, laboring on my back— it’s black outside the walls. I stare at the desperation hum swirling among the huts. I stare at the threats of dogs chained to poles, of jaw spears sunk in my muddy feet while I’m laboring. . . I stare at the smell of urine pots. We dare not empty them at night with all those machete men out there. Counterexample Poetics, April 2009
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:33:01 +0000
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