she is bold:
ears strung with gold
her fetishes made from the bones of the old and on her head she holds
the fabric of souls
her slender neck sinking from the weight of full bowls
four meals (her hips spin like wheels, i am told)
and she heals
with hands that are stiff with the strength of steel::
sisters::
scarring their skin to idetify their kin
clits cut at age ten and then
they endure
the weak will of men
with too many wives nine infants through their thighs and a soft yellow tint
to the whites
of their eyes
the sky cries for these lives
through the infinite ancestry refusing to die still strong
stretched palms and arms long
tipping scales weighing trades of millet and song
here women walk on smiling past what is wrong but to daughters of dogon born into dust:
life is long
