Deliver
Me From The Hands of Strange Children
On the Day of the Dead,
On the day we plead on their behalf,
he *naked me,
stripped my body
in front of carved saints, elegantly stoic
cloistered in their own uselessness
he naked me
in front of bands of soldier boys, spellbound
and spoiled,
wearing their sisters’ dresses and their
mothers’ wigs
their necks encased in feather boas and forest
paint
their waists jeweled with the feces of Cold War
arsenals
in a church garden wild with perfume
under a bush plum tree
the kind we make our Christmas pudding from
he naked me
he naked me
as I quietly pleaded to the holy queen
as he told me her ears were stuffed with
cassava leaves
and her son’s many failures
as he pissed his discontent in my face
he laid me beneath a neighboring mango tree
magnificent in its promise to shield
and he used a bayonet like a crochet hook
pushing through my vagina
in search of hidden bounty
in search of buried cell phones and soiled cash
pulling from its walls only prayer beads
christened by frightened menses
for such a gross disappointment
he placed mary’s head
machete-sharpened and faceless
in there instead
*Naked, used as
a verb, is a Liberian description of the military tactic employed by boy
soldiers in which they stripped civilians, particularly women, of their
clothing as a means of humiliation.
Previously Published in Sea Breeze Journal of Contemporary Liberian
Writings
