Her Burdens

She wakes promptly at sunrise,

as she has done for a year and twenty,

her back aches,

not from the buckets of water she will fetch from the stream,

nor from the bending and sweeping under hot sun gleam,

and not from the soon to come pounding of pestle on yam,

to feed the daddy's white friends that fight for some 'Uncle Sam',

her back aches,

from the dirty looks on mama's face,

that spell themselves on her forehead

d-i-s-g-r-a-c-e,

her back aches,

when she is made to sit upright for suitors, swarming flies,

fixated upon her flesh with pretentiously kind eyes,

eyes that hide the malice she has always seen,

when the devil in paternal skin forces himself in between,

her back aches,

she smiles because she cannot cry,

her heart lets out another sigh

echoed by her mother as the men finally go away,

her ring finger remaining vacant for yet another day.

They disregard her interests,

like her adoration of Greek myths,

her back no longer aches,

when she wonders if this is how Atlas felt,

but abruptly all her thoughts are blocked out by a belt,

father has taken to the drink and cares not for her pain,

while her mother looks on with indifferent disdain,

her back no longer aches,

it burns from his complete lack of pity,

snakelike writhing coupled with banshee shrieks,

as if she were Emily Rose possessed,

her back no longer aches,

in these moments that pain renders all other emotion null,

turning her feelings to wild game for the whip to cull,

quick as it began the barrage comes to an end,

left all alone at last with her one and only friend

her back no longer aches,

for the mirror shows a woman bruised that will not break,

reflecting a duckling turned swan in a glassy lake,

just as she lies to rest her back for the burdens of the next day,

the horny devil reappears for his nighttime play.