The mornings of my courtyard
awaken to her yellow cries;
she is the wrinkled meaning of evening
passing into stark night.
No one knows her exact age.
She belonged to the mid-wife’s time.
The old neighbourhood barely remembers her
arriving from some hunger somewhere
with her husband, two children
and a ration card.
It doesn’t matter now how old she is.
There is the useless doctor,
a weak pulse that doesn’t stop,
her angry yelps desperately trying
to recall forgotten words,
medicines she can’t swallow,
are her vocabulary.
The seven milestones in her womb’s journey,
take turns to love her;
they bathe her, feed her, clean her shit and
perhaps try to wash away some unfounded guilt.
At times they will fight over her
and her dumb cries will intensify
their struggle for meaning.
None of them can bear to see her suffer anymore,
and even as they say it’s better she goes,
she smiles at her year-old grandson,
from that end of reason
so perilously close to birth.
