Adwoa Mansa is a mess in marriage dress
She looks like worry
And walks like a sorry
Why? Because she has a sad story
…causing her duress
II
It’s been seven years since her nuptials
Seven years since her family
Her husband’s family
Her friends
Friends of her friends
Have turned guards of her womb
Waiting for the arrival of a bundle from her girdle
But not even a smiling clot has been seen
So she lives in a noisy wait
III
Her in-laws have bathed their son with their tears
“An only son cannot live with a barren woman
Please marry another”
And her son has heeded halfway
Turing into a skirt turner
Going through this
Going through that
Going through all where gates of yes call
As if he holds of cheating chit
Roasting Adwoa’s heart on a mesh of jealousy
Still, he’s not shot a game
Let alone bring it home
Nothing still clicks
IV
She has been sent for womb cleaning
Her womb wobbled like a gutter of filth
…in the hands of rough distillers
She has drank concoctions bitter than bile
Been stemmed like fresh meat thicker than bones
She has been prayed for and preyed on
By numerous frauds
Still nothing works
Fasting upon fasting upon fasting
…dressed with prayers and garnished with tears
Still nothing works for Adwoa Mansa
V
Her parents cry their bad fate
Asking her to endure the torture
Even as she lives like a fruit which has been dissected
…calling pests of all kinds to feast
Her friends smile in her presence
And say vile words in her absence
Strangers cast insinuations of curses
As young women call on God to forbid that her fate
…becomes contagious and infect them
VI
Still Adwoa bears them all
Closing her ears to noisy rumours
Blinding her sight from insulting signs
Shutting her mouth to provocative confrontations
This is the plight of the barren
In some Sikaman homes
As consciences are imprisoned in wise heads
As superstitions hold canes to whip an innocent soul
At the dictate of society
Amoafowaa Sefa Cecilia © September 10, 2020
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