See How They Stare

See how they stare
See how they stare

See how they dare
Stand there,

and without a care
eye me, with

that mix of fascination and disgust
only preserved for

the one-eyed ogre,
the two-headed monster,

the three-legged man,
the four-breasted woman

See them stare,
with bulbous noses up in the air

Watch how they look
at me,

their mouths agape, and
eyes wide like saucers

As if am some mammal
that is extinct, like

that lioness that adopted a dik dik
Ready to click click

their cameras
Like it is their first safari

Or, they have just seen a rastafari
in deep meditation

See how they stare
Heads bobbing side to side,

like puppets on strings
Amazed, as if

a prodigal son has returned
Stupefied, as though trees grow on the pores of my skin,

and mountains sprout out of my head,
instead of hair

See their chests puffing with self-importance
See them point

See them shriek
See how they laugh

At this skin,
That is two shades darker than theirs.

©, N.L., 2009

Her-Story

The women in my
family,
For five
generations
Have lain with men
Who have given
them daughters
and no sons

Because of this,
and
because we have all
somehow
managed
to outlive our men,
They, who know nothing about genetics,
but claim to know it all,
call us ngirani:
The cursed women

They say we walk naked and
survive on a diet of human flesh and blood
like vampires

When
We disagree with their opinions
And raise some of our own
They look at us contemptuously
and spit out
"feminists!"
Making it sound like the dirtiest word on earth

They say that we,
like the witches
in 17th Century Europe,
must be cleansed of evil
and destroyed

But we refuse to be held in chains
we choose to write our own history
we will chart our destiny

So here is to you, Mekatilili wa Mwenza
I pour libation to you, Wangu wa Makeri
I salute you, Mary Muthoni Nyanjiri

©, N.L., 2009