For Grandma (Paternal)

This tall wide hip woman

Moving with the flow--

Of this heat filled wind

Her narrow dark eyes

Suppressing this immense intelligence

Surrounded by this chain

Placed by this society

This culture that praised

The robotic submissiveness

Of this woman that sat

Controlling the volume

Of even the breath

Her lungs released

The power in these hips

Brought forth these children

That came in the form of nine

Staring at the mirror

Her beauty long faded

Replaced by this drive

To please this submissive role

Giving her soul—

To these lips

That soon moved

To please this young replica—

Of the woman she was

The year her breasts rose

From the city of Eyl  (Northern Somalia)

 This city surrounded by—

The beauty of these mountains

These waterfalls that danced

Like her hips—

When she walked

looking at this replica

Twenty years of giving

Froze her sanity

She walked

These mountains consumed

What was to be—

This woman that handed

These hips of mine

Dancing with every step.

Yasmine Farah

Copyright © 2011