Village Marriage Day Poem by Frank Bana

With a long fine cloud
She wandered slowly away
Across the yellow mouth of morning
Through another gate-head
Where the withered maize-stems made
Leaves for folded dolls.

The backyard
Should be smeared this year.

She approaches her father
His hands bloodstained
The goat’s head laid back
On its tenuous link to the body.

She looks at the goat
Turns over the night of love
Her sleek tilted head remembers
The other art of marriage
For which he said she must prepare.