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Because she Has Come (Grace Nichols)
Because she has come
with geometrical designs
upon her breasts.
Because she has borne five children
and her belly is criss-crossed
with little tongues of fire.
Because she has braided her hair
in the cornrow, twisting it upwards
to show her high inner status.
Because she has tucked
a bright wrap
about her Nubian brownness.
Because she has stained her toes
with the juice of the henna
to attract any number of arrant males.
Because she has the good sense
to wear a scarab
to protect her heart.
Because she has a pearl
in the middle
of her lower delta.
Give her honour
Give her honour, you fools
Give her honour.
From The Fat Black Woman Poems, Virago Press 1984
Muliebrity (Sujata Bhatt)
I have thought so much about the girl
who gathered cow-dung in a wide, round basket
along the main road passing by our house
and the Radhavallabh temple in Maninagar.
I have thought so much about the way she
moved her hands and her waist
and the smell of cow-dung and road-dust and wet canna lilies,
the smell of monkey breath and freshly washed clothes
and the dust from crows’ wings which smells different-
and again the smell of cow-dung as the girl scoops
it up, all these smells surrounding me separately
and simultaneously - I have thought so much
but have been unwilling to use her for a metaphor,
for a nice image - but most of all unwilling
to forget her or to explain to anyone the greatness
and the power glistening through her cheekbones
each time she found a particularly promising
mound of dung -
From Brunizem, Carcanet 1988