Do Not Tell Poem by Katusiime Jeresi

I am a mother
Not a well of IQ
That everybody who squirms
In my amniotic fluid
Is bound to share a little of ‘my brains'
A ‘half of my cunning'
Three quarters of ‘my charm'
And a full serving of ‘my wit'.

You
Caress gourd upon gourd
Reduce yourself to a shell of your former glory
Perfect the fine art of whisking skirts up
Sowing seed and
Blaming the garden if its seedlings are full of weeds

This man calls me wanton and foolish
-He may be right
But whatever curtains veiled my eyes
Have lifted.
He
-in his flaming wisdom
should have
clung to his mother
If he wanted an IQ well
To carry his offspring.



reluctance throbs in my veins
-when I lean on him.
The caution of an asthmatic man
saturates each breath
This man, mother says
Is just a man