SHIKU

She stared into space,

Her eyes dark blank orbs,

Her face contorted, grimacing as if in a cocktail of mirth and pain,

A pathetic visage to those who looked upon her.

She was tall and slender,

She was attractive, once, but now…

Her hair was a matted and tangled mess,

Her weather-beaten skin was scorched by the unforgiving sun and morphed into sandpaper.

Her dressing was neither of her own design, nor by choice,

She wore a brown tee - it might have been white once,

Below that a leso, firmly held in place by a tight knot,

Her bare feet were calloused, cracked and caked in dust.

She remembered of a life before this,

Laughter filled sunny days,

A warmth that seemed would be infinite,

She would give her very soul to have that back even for a minute.

Now, they come in the night; an official visit they say,

‘Better not to ask too many questions, madam’, her sons and daughters order,

They pillage and plunder,

Property and life; they do not discriminate.

Divested of her honour,

Stripped of the titles to her land,

Her stores once bursting with produce, now reduced to a trickle,

Shiku lies in wait for her sons and daughters to see reason.