Faience Lily

She, bright as a fragile smile.
Do not mistake the moist
brilliance of her eye
as irritation, smoke cured
in a beehive mudhouse.

You count her days in millet cakes,
wind tossed lentils. Media sort
her worldly worth in hollow husks,
discarded dreams, fist of rice.

Her bread, unleavened. Self; raised
in a donkey driven heritage,

two legs good,
four legs better.

Then, look again, note her future
bid her onward, see her colours,
blue green, self glazed footprints
on spine-cracked stepping tomes.

Share her splash dance in words,
irrigation of her mind.
True to her womb,
Woman, rising.