Five Poems by Oumar Farouk Sesay

He did not die that day

When the tale of the toll

Of the war was told

In the warmth of our room

My husband folded the sleeves of his Ronko

Sharpened his spear

Smeared mafoi on his body

Beat his chest

Spewed honey bees

The lion growled;

“I will die for your honor”

When the renegade came

Violence galore;

Looting my honor

Raping my dignity

Entombing my womb

He did not die that day

His heart pounds

Stomach of beehive rumbles

His Ronko and spear

Behind the door

Next to the bottle of Mafoi

Remained untouched

He shriek under the bed

As the renegades killed my honor

But he did not die that day

Yet he is dying everyday

For not dying that day

The Cry

Rage

Despair

Anguish

Pain

Congealed in the chambers of her soul

As she writhes in the holes of Bunce Island

From the torment of her soul

To the pain of her ovaries

A cry of anguish was born

The cry sucks strength

From the gall of her despair

Ebbs through the tides

Strikes her vocal cords

And explodes into the air

Drenching the cacophony of groans

The Girl slave pants

Like a mother in labor

In the slave house

Where the rape of her humanity

Gave birth to the cry

Her cry mingles

With cries of yesterday

Conspires with sand storm

To torment desert Arabs 

The cry drifts in the wind

Unleashing storms

Across oceans

Lashing volcanoes

Takes a sigh in play grounds

Before charging to the Ruffian killing fields

The girl perished

The cry survives her mortality

Hers the Eve of cries

The cry of a century

Drilled though the ears of a poet

The poet packages:

The torment, the pain, and the cry

The cry a verse

The verse a poem

A poem of pain

The girl who cried

Died long ago

In the Middle Passage

Survived by a cry

Perhaps she was born

For just this cry

And the poet

For just this poem