Lily's Sestina Poem by Kwame Sarfo Aboagye

Every night she would stare at the moon,
This pretty little girl called Lily,
Wishing that her life – her ill-starred life
Would be filled with something other than misery,
And the life of her unfortunate mother
Consumed by someone, no, something other than her father.

She was kind-hearted but throughout her early life,
Her nemesis, who happened to be her father
Provided for her, nothing other than misery
And offered something worse for her mother,
Who was as silent as the moon
And prayed for a better childhood for Lily.

She beheld the gloomy face of her mother,
Swollen by the tireless fists of her father
Who was inextricably linked to a perverse life
Of malice, converting happiness to misery;
He wasn’t exposed by the dim light of the moon,
So no one knew about the plight of Lily.

Even though she was very young, Lily
Knew just as much as the moon
Was silent, that what her apparent father
Did to her ostensibly vulnerable mother
Was unacceptable in any creature’s life;
Not even he deserved that much misery.

When age had finally taken away the misery
From her rather long life, Lily
Took no part in the funeral of her father
To appease herself and her mother,
Who had already lost her miserable life;
And the only witness was the silent moon.

Now, the long overdue end of the misery
Wasn’t the end of the story of Lily;
There was still a void in her life
Created not by the actions of her father,
But by the silence of her mother,
And of course, the silence of the moon.