11-16-2021, 04:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-16-2021, 04:54 PM by RiverNotch.)
Sestina
March, summer for suckers, fills the cafe
with those who dress in vintage, ration
like it's wartime, and silently scream
into their phones, "This world's a stove
run out of gas! Who can raise a child
in this climate?" All while the old hyena
laughs, skulking for food. Here in Addis Ababa, hyenas
fill the streets at night, scavenge the cafes
and hospitals for left-behind children
like beggars for scraps of himbasha. "Wasted rations",
thinks the beggar tending an old stove,
"all a mother's labor, all her screams
dissolved by stomach acid." Every night, the screams
(or is it laughs?) of roughing it (or living the life?) hyenas
permeate the air like smoke from earthen stoves
cooking charcoal to sell to the cafes
who serve their coffee authentic. Such fancy rations
for the tourists and their spoiled children,
imported coffee and himbasha loaves and the occasional child
to be brought back home and shown the wonders of screaming
into one's phone, complaining about such meager rations
as foreign bread and coffee! A hyena
grins -- "Isn't she cute?" -- while the cafe
drives away the beggar from their stove
for the tourists to take their picture. "Back home, our stoves
are powered by electricity. They're safe enough for a child
to touch, so long as she's not metal." The owner of the cafe
musses his daughter's hair. "Come on, stop your screaming.
Out there in New York, there are no hyenas
and you won't have to save your rations
like it's wartime." "Baba, it's not about the rations
nor the burns on my arms this ancient stove
has all the right to inflict. Are you sure there are no hyenas
where you ask to send me? Where none of the children
seem to suffer, where none of them cry and scream?"
The sun sets. The tourists leave the cafe
with their new child. The grinning hyena
rubs her back against the dying stove, her rations
lying in a pile behind the cafe. Another scream.
March, summer for suckers, fills the cafe
with those who dress in vintage, ration
like it's wartime, and silently scream
into their phones, "This world's a stove
run out of gas! Who can raise a child
in this climate?" All while the old hyena
laughs, skulking for food. Here in Addis Ababa, hyenas
fill the streets at night, scavenge the cafes
and hospitals for left-behind children
like beggars for scraps of himbasha. "Wasted rations",
thinks the beggar tending an old stove,
"all a mother's labor, all her screams
dissolved by stomach acid." Every night, the screams
(or is it laughs?) of roughing it (or living the life?) hyenas
permeate the air like smoke from earthen stoves
cooking charcoal to sell to the cafes
who serve their coffee authentic. Such fancy rations
for the tourists and their spoiled children,
imported coffee and himbasha loaves and the occasional child
to be brought back home and shown the wonders of screaming
into one's phone, complaining about such meager rations
as foreign bread and coffee! A hyena
grins -- "Isn't she cute?" -- while the cafe
drives away the beggar from their stove
for the tourists to take their picture. "Back home, our stoves
are powered by electricity. They're safe enough for a child
to touch, so long as she's not metal." The owner of the cafe
musses his daughter's hair. "Come on, stop your screaming.
Out there in New York, there are no hyenas
and you won't have to save your rations
like it's wartime." "Baba, it's not about the rations
nor the burns on my arms this ancient stove
has all the right to inflict. Are you sure there are no hyenas
where you ask to send me? Where none of the children
seem to suffer, where none of them cry and scream?"
The sun sets. The tourists leave the cafe
with their new child. The grinning hyena
rubs her back against the dying stove, her rations
lying in a pile behind the cafe. Another scream.