Left on scrubbed wooden steps to think
about disobedience and forgetfulness
she feels warm sun on the back of her neck
as she kneels on the pale spot worn
by other little girls’ tender knees,
a hundred black wool stockings
grinding skin and splintered wood,
beneath one knee a hard white navy bean.
Distant lightning flickers, nears, and
flashes down her shins, felt by other
uniformed girls marching to sewing class
waiting for their own inevitable return
to the stairs, to think and remember what happens
to girls who speak a pagan tongue.
Try to forget this pagan tongue.
Disobedient and forgetful she almost hears
beyond the schoolyard
beyond the train ride
beyond little girls crying in white iron beds
her mother far away
singing to herself as she cooks
speaking quietly with Grandma as they piece
the quilt for the new baby
and laughing with the aunties
while they wash clothes
the little bean,
does it hurt?
Bizaan, gego mawi ken, don’t cry
she thinks, moving her knee so the little bean
feels only the soft part, and not the bone
how long can I stay here?
And when Matron returns to ask if she’s thought
she answers yes, I won’t talk like a pagan again
and she stands and picks up the little bean
and carries it in her lonesome lying hand
until lights out,
when the baby bean
sleeps under her pillow.