Mother is pregnant with a sixth child and gives birth to a girl again.
Father drinks himself blank in the backyard,
He had said, ‘being a drunkard is better than having a woman to shame you with girls.’
So we grew in mother’s palm and lip,
Her breast we sucked sagged,
Her illy pennies ours.
Her first daughter is pregnant off wedlock,
Father’s sayings became true,
And he blessed her with strange verses
Expelling her to her scruffy husband who has no feet.
The second welcomed strangers mother knew not,
She was raped for a slice of yam to her dying throat.
Mother feels no remorse but her heart bleed. I can see it.
We bear father’s name, the school ledger knows it,
He blows us mucus when we ask for money to pay the standing debts.
Thus mother will gather us every night
And plead orisons to our ears
Begging us to grow in God sight.
One night, I heard father call mother’s name on another woman,
I spoke to mother of it and how he threw notes on her,
She did clasp her hands in silence and buried her mouth in his ablution kettle,
Praying for his longevity and repentance.
Osun born poet, Adesina Ayobami Idris writes on the themes of domestic violence, infidelity, girlhood, boyhood and prosperity. He lives and writes from Ilorin where he studies Social work in the University of Ilorin.
