Tonight she dreams of her village
Woven in her thoughts as reeds in a
basket
Her brown hands clinging to her
child
Suckling, its black eyes shimmering
Its mind transported to a space
where grass
Grows golden
And air
Fizzles at the touch of fingertips
Grass bends beneath her feet
Ravens soar low
Seduced by the strings of a kora
She wanders to the clearing
Where trees hang low in slumber
Where time whispers of a wilderness
No number branded
To that lion
Roaring in the hot wind
Only, the stench of dead meat
She shudders
As a young gazelle lays docile,
Striped eyes watching vultures
Descend
At dawn, she saves the bones.
Published in Emerge Literary Journal on October 2, 2012
