BIRTHDAY GIRL UNDER HOUSE ARREST

‘It takes a village to raise a child’ YORUBA PROVERB

 

The rest of us are dressed for January’s

damp chill but she greets us on the driveway in

cool boots, black tights, black skirt, white shirt, and red cloak

Grandma has made for TikTok performances.

She smiles briefly, then gurns. A homemade cake

is brought carefully through the front door,

with candles blazing,  duly blown out.

We sing the song, and mark her eleven years

upon the earth. She is lovely, lithe, and kind.

 

The cake goes back, returns sliced, on paper plates.

Our gifts are unwrapped in the open boot

of the family car – clothes, books, poem.

We are an innovative species –

and stoical. The very lightest of

drizzles begins to fall.

 

 

 

'It takes a village to raise a child'gurningHappy BirthdayJanuaryTikTokYoruba proverb