Provider
I am the misfit lock to your keyhole
crafted meticulously, yet the ridges do not align
I bear the key to eternal happiness
but the combination she cannot find
The ancillary is catching and the keyhole is too small
I am Abiku, the screw that does not fit the ball
I do not stop turning the key
I torture a woman who wants nothing more than to hold me
She lies awake at night, with no one to drown the midnight cries
of a soldiers fighting in a pasture nearby
Without a fearful baby to tend to and read goodnight stories
She is given a plot of land to bury my bones and give only warnings
I am the unwritten baby books and empty bottles of milk
I keep haunting a woman who couldn’t deliver her silk
I am the decaying mobile and the abandoned crib
I am the one who keeps her enslaved to a baby that never will
I can hear your heartbeat from within a fruitless womb
Keeping time
as ticks do on a clock
It beats stronger as you walk up the church holding my small tomb
Bury me under the ground
but my presence will come soon
No form of sacrifice or libation will suffice,
Abiku is here, while transient, my impact is not light
Inspired by a book I read in high school and by a story I heard this week after interviewing a factory worker and documenting her narrative.