Content warning: this poem contains descriptions of female circumcision that may be upsetting.

a woman is a woman because of a woman

grandmother uses a stick to draw a pattern in the copper sand, sends
a signal to god by way of three half moons. recently she spoke to
the seer, he shook a bag of palm seeds twenty-one times. the next day
she had to cut the head off a lizard and mix it with bitterleaf

it worked, grandmother remembers the euphoria of the moment that she
was designated the next carrier, my mother picked her

grandmother believes she did everything right: laid my mother
a nursing babe, on the vlisco wrap / razorblade in fire /
burning blade to baby / determined that baby
would be less sensitive thus perfect

such women are better at obeying their husbands, are worth
a bigger dowry, provide for their own father and
mother and father- and mother-in-law
and anyone who asks

until there’s nothing left but exhaustion to pass on
to the girl who must repeat the pattern

someone said I should write a positive poem about you some time

then I have to go back to when you were five years old, the age when
the cola nuts rained down before your brother’s blows did
I would give you a story
in which you didn’t grow up with him, in which you knew your father
even though we both know by now this wouldn’t be ideal

I would give you an active imagination with which you could build escape rooms
(my favorite one has velvet walls, a box of
Winnie-the-Pooh bandages, a rainbow-colored tambourine
and soundproof walls so as not to disturb anyone)

I would praise your bravery when you were twenty-eight
when you boarded an airbus a330 a child in tow
you didn’t know that the day before
was the last time you’d see your mother alive
I would thank you for the packing list you made
when we fled together: your diaries, my first dress and baby pictures
(unfortunately I’ll have to wait for you to die before I
can fetch the photos from the home you were able to buy)

I’d wish for you to have grown up in a country and a period
in which mental healthcare was available
so that you might have thought twice
before bringing me into the world
or at least that after arriving in the netherlands and
completing the asylum procedure you might have signed up
to see a psychologist—I could have paid for the sessions
not covered by your health insurance—

maybe

“Een vrouw is een vrouw door een vrouw” and “Iemand zei dat ik ook een positief gedicht over jou moest schrijven” © Babeth Fonchie Fotchind. By arrangement with the author. Translations © 2023 by Michele Hutchison. With the support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature. All rights reserved.