She plays by
hearth,
Almost at
the same spot where she was given birth.
It been four
years since.
Despite the
ash on her face and cheeks,
All can see
she will be even more beautiful than a queen.
She runs
home crying and alone,
Rivulets of
tears breaking the gray of her ashen cheeks.
Gushing from
her eyes, tears of pain, humiliation and determination.
Skin ashen,
for they could not afford even petroleum jelly.
Never again,
will they call her The Ash Queen.
It is the
Friday after Ash Wednesday:
She is
preparing for her ‘first real date’.
It is going
to be a good Friday,
She muses at
her own muse, as she applies scarlet on her lips,
Before dusting
her face, overdoing the ashen cheeks.
In the Twilight
Zone way past twilight,
Makeup well
fixed and the inner eye fixed,
On getting
her shine on and then a fix.
Clothed in a
skirt that barely covers, her never-now ashen ass cheeks.
Still her
glitter-covered face in the lamplight’s harsh glare, has ashen cheeks.
Drained of
all colour she leaves,
The clinic
where she just saw, the ashen skin.
Face drained
of all colour, ashen cheeks.
From where
lives are snuffed out and cremated,
The ashes to
be thrown, in an Aspen creek.
In the Twilight
Zone, way past her twilight,
The
lamplight’s harsh glare, covering her crow’s feet.
Powdered-up
face, plastered smile grim.
None can
cover the bruises,
On her ashen
face skin.
She is dead
now, truly got ashen cheeks.
A ritual
must be performed,
To ward off her
wayward seed.
Her
grandmother gathers ash and apply it on her behind,
The ritual’s
success is focused, on her ashen ass cheeks.
(NB: It is
rumoured that those who don’t give birth in Kikuyu land have ash applied on
their behind and their grandmother sits on their stomach. This causes ‘flatulence’,
blowing off the ash. This is believed to make their spirit of non-reproduction
vanish like the ash does in thin air. I don’t know a case of this happening
personally nor a first-hand account. Everyone say they heard from someone who
heard from someone who saw/heard of it happening).
