baobab girl

inside the baobab
lives a dark slender girl
dressed in drifting
moon-cloth who carries

a luminous bone dagger
upon which she has carved
many names
exquisitely

at her belt a bag of duiker skin
swells with the pulsing
prayers she has stolen
and kept

singing high
she rides as she pleases
upon the great winds
and through the light

she haunts the canopy
of the baobab tree
and at night bends
over your fevered

sleep to whisper:
ausculta, fili! I am
that to which nothing
may be preferred

her eyes are dark gold
as wild bee honey
and when she moves
little blood-beads fall

in scalding rows
from her prayer bag
and settle steaming
on the path behind her

by  Nic Sebastian