Awero's Pounded Yam

Have you eaten Awero's pounded yam?
it is a scrumptious finger-licking action,
as each morsel dances around in plates
of egusi soup and calms the restleness
of watering lustful mouths.

When you hear the mortar and pestle
murderously conspiring to crush the yam's bones
in her small smokey kitchen,
be sure to set your appetitie on fire
before the neighbours come around.

Her hut is home
to every hungry belly,
it unites the village
in webs of aromatic kinship,
Awero's pounded yam
cures all sorts of sicknesses,
they say it is medicinal.

She has never tasted her own food,
they say she prefers
the company of starvation ,
they say she is strange,
probably demented.

Awero's tale is the tale of our land,
a land where our drunk dumb chiefs
give out our pounded yam
to willing foreign food mongers
who empty our pot of soup
and fill it with sand in return.