There must be a manual somewhere,
I've searched for it with a fine-toothed comb
In despair, pulled out my hair
I've looked from Cape Town to Rome.
See, no one in this life
Ever taught me how to be a wife
Mama, she was too busy praying
calling my aunts up and saying
talk to your niece, please
tell her it's not all doom and gloom, she's
going to let a good man go.
So I married my beau
and Mama went back to her prayers
this time, to thank the forebears
that her errant daughter
with the restless spirit of a Berber
had finally traded her running shoes and bloomers
for a pair of blue house slippers
When I woke up
from the dream that was my honeymoon
dressed up and got down to being a grown up
I wondered what it all must mean,
This business of being a wife,
of letting an alien person into one's life
Your bedroom is sacred, they chanted
Don't let anyone else in, not even the maid
Otherwise she will be bedded!
Change the bedsheets and towels, said the marriage brigade
Everyday without fail
Marriage is a woman's grail
Don't say no when he wants it
and if you want it, please don't show it
(or he'll wonder if you are 'outsourcing')
Don't even think about divorcing
him, it is always this way with men
If nothing think of your son, then
Sister, being a wife
means living contentedly in strife!
Let go of this foolish talk about 'individuality',
A woman is either a wife or a mother, that is the reality
Learn to keep mum, else you'll be snubbed
from this married women's club
©, N.L., 2010
7 comments:
And they tell it to their daughters and they, in turn, to their daughters... and the (vicious?) circle goes on and on...
Meraviglioso.
This is good!
@ Mo: You say vicious circle, someone else says way of life...how's life in the desert?
@ Beautiful: Cheers!
hmm.....I hope this ain't generalizing all marriages tho.
@Omotade: Definitely not. This is just one (microscopic) viewpoint.
Ooh sweet God!...ooh sweet God!...here goes a poem with a mouth, a mouth that speaks to the peak!...a sensible mouth that sensitizes marital senses!a mouth that mouths mammoth mountains...delicately decorated by vicious cycles of marriage carriages and miscarriages...hmmmm...awesome!!
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