let the hope rise
(upon reading Dele Olojede’s “Genocide’s child: A mother struggles to love her child of rape.”)
what use, Alphoncina, it is for you
tucking this angst of motherhood
in the cavities of your dismilked breasts?
tell us what you reap
when you wander, fumble, teary-eyed,
inside the urethras of those savage penises
in sinews of penal tragedy?
shouldn’t you have known that
Rwanda was a whole misfired penis
aimed by man’s scything urge, blazing moans
to recreate universe in his veins of violent?
shouldn’t you, Alphoncina, have known that
the Hutus suddenly realized man’s miracle
in his heavens of metalic wonders
in his craze for rage additions
of lingering instinct straight from Caine’s penis?
Alphoncina, your emotion startles us
your undried tears blur our vision
your unhealed yesterdays wound humanity
Alphoncina, this world harbors wayward penises
this termagant, garrulous world
this ageless stream of mediafiction
games with petty syllables of war
and refine worldloric tongues for the Hutus
Alphoncina, return from your self-made pond of tears
return, oh dear, return from the condolence of your emotion
and from the violent veins of those savage penises
step out of the lusty stings of those brutes
step out of the innards of those Interahmwe
take a bold stride over the rot that conscienced the Hutus
be a soldier in the stagnant sun of today
call her rays to companion and create
a hope out of those spindly arms of fate
Alphoncina, come into the daylight breath of Gervais
tell us the taste of your breast milk, Alphoncina
was it sweet or bitter for Garvais?
didn’t he scream out his distaste, kick at
this penis-savaged world, and resign
to the life that milked out of your breasts
when your thighs gave way to him
in your fierce ululation of relief?
Gervais came to you
as an eye in tomorrow’s face
as a tongue in tomorrow’s mouth,
as a penis of peace in tomorrow’s waist,
as a conscience in tomorrow’s life.
Gervais is the weapon of peace you’ll use to rape this world
Alphoncina, why would you court your past
when Gervais, in uniform, books in hands, prays you a staring hope?
why would you linger on the sterile fingers of yesterday
refusing to be washed into the stream that rivers tomorrow?
why would you stalk Gervais’s tomorrow, like those brutes,
and, in your infant psychosis, rape your son’s maleness?
arm yourself, Alphoncina, with the penis of peace offered by Gervais
and rape those Interahamwe, rape this world!
——————
Poem © E. E. Sule