Six

Six years

I counted them as six minutes

or six lives

sixth was the day

sixth the month

when I stabbed you

to six deaths.

Outside my house

mountains rose out of molehills

wrecked wheels transformed

into cars and coaches

markets became malls

towering the streets

while women wailed

against crimes of lust and loathe

even with a lady of husbandry.

Here in my country nothing changed

I still tie my hair in a bun

wear barrettes and love my grey

abhorring with audacity

my obsessive compulsive disorder

of scrubbing tables,

floors and my brown skin

of dirt and disgust.

While poaching plants to

fill my belly and heart

practising dishes

I never wanted to cook for you.

And in these six years

I've loved children

deserted by spouseless mothers

and starving men

seen muted maidens step out

of their porches

after being cremated till dry,

fallen in love with coccus creatures

those that levitate light.

Cribbed and choked in cliché,

poetry you may call,

not worn my veil

in respect to men

tongue tied them

in a vain act of valour

mooted and mimed

their dominating desire

to love me as a woman.

When I learned to

brew my coffee

without bitterness

I realized six men

had walked past me

the first and third loved my poetry

while the second condoned it to banality,

the fourth with bibs around his neck

wanted to braid a noose for me,

the fifth never existed

in my poems and parables,

and then on another sixth

a sixth one walked in

the one who gave me a garland of gold,

my marauded earth swallowed all five

while nailing the sixth in your coffin

And I developed cold feet

those without cracks

and forgot the number six.

First published in Petrichor Review on page 33 and Ottawa Arts review.