The Things Between Our Legs

Young man,
I sit by the midwife’s couch
And wait for you to show me where your superiority was born.

I want to see when you became more equal,
to hold it and smell it.
To wrap it around myself.

I want to be taught the maths of worth.
How a human is made invisible, how a woman disappears,
how oppression evolves, how sacrifice is undone.

Could it be when I carried your father for inside me for nine long months?
Weathering Morning sickness, Malaria, Anaemia and HIV?

Or was it while I walked two kilometres without food or water through a pain that defies words to squat on this couch and push you out?

It can’t be while I nursed you at my breast,
Fed you from my body for twenty four.

Aha! It was when you became a man.

When you no longer needed a napkin change,

When you learnt how to blow your nose,

When my pots were empty and my grain had fed you fat,

When your muscles rippled as you walked,

When you were old enough to work, and you had discovered the thing between your legs could put urine in bottles,

And forgot the thing between mine had borne you.