I am learning to love my child
whose father split my legs
into an opened brochure
to read hallowed letters of a sacred light

I am learning to love him
even when his pout
is the picture
of a man who snatched
the knowledge of how to smile
from my spout
I am learning to love
my child

My face clouds up at will
when his air comes to remind
of that day’s odour
when a skin bruised mine
and razor-sharp fingers
cut thick anguish
whose scars
refuse to shrink

I am learning to love him
even when he bites my nipple
while I fed him and I am
reminded
of how his father’s teeth tore them
I am learning to love
my child

He grew and learned to talk
with his father’s voice
the monster who dug a hole
into me and stained the floor
with his water and my blood

The beginning was no word
just a flower that blew off
         in its bud
the air was all dark desires
lost, pure as light in his bulbs
no spot reads “darkness begins from these dots”.
But a monster hand
went into my skirt
and sowed
what I am still learning to love
until he became a man
in his father’s shadows
     and
replicated my scars
on the body of a neighbour’s daughter

© Saddiq Dzukogi

Image Credit