Grace

there was heat.

and the smell of stale sweat

from mother and child.

from children –

five dead, two alive.

like a blanket of dust

in an empty house

sweat and tears

inherited disease

clung to furniture of this ten by ten shack.

nowhere else to go,

it settled

like its tenants

whose past, present, and death

were determined at birth

by the luck of location and tribe

adopted

by their name.

at first

she said,

there was desperation.

a choking desire to remove physical tension

created by droughts, famines,

and a country run by men.

she left dry earth

for concrete landfills

in some city where

there was enough food

and lazy afternoons taken,

in between red earth huts and

narrow slithers of sunshine.

there were mornings too,

sometimes.

when the women from gated communities

did not care to employ slaves from the nearby ghetto.

rest days brought more problems,

too much liberty meant time

to fuck the alcoholic into more irresponsibility.

she said

“he fooled me”

when he stayed a week too many,

and held her hair as she wretched

maize and potatoes

that grew two feet from swine and sewer.

he left the night she could

no longer hold her bladder

and noticed her figure

was turning into that of a sweet, round mother.

still the produce of her labor

lent her episodes of sheer joy,

to share her blood and life with another,

only to realize

much later

the same life giver

took her three sons

and two daughters

well before they could love and feed her.

there was heat.

and large black flies

which came

and settled

on red earth walls

and sweat

on her

and her two

live children.