matriarch

I sit cross-legged
and my belly concertinas
out, round, and in,
in four rolls of fat,
my breasts
rest on this soft bed.
I run my tongue round my lips
as one of my men approaches,
Me queen spider
of my tribe

He brings me a travel coconut
swept across the sea
from where the waterfalls cascade
off the edge of swell and float

He asks me to open
and kneels down to kiss me and
feels me,
veins, amulets

I lie myself back
raise up my knees
and keep them locked.
He strokes my deep hips
and I imagine semen coursing
and the juice of me trickling
but there is no urging in me
and with time, with time,
eye sliding, he leaves

And my sisters formed around
and we roared,
trembled with laughter
we hugged
and kissed cheeks wet with fears.
We threw sand at the men
and we jumped in thought in our stamping ground

Later much later,
when we had braided our hair
one of us said she felt
the Life forming inside her -
I called to the man of her night and
put my fingers to his temples,
as I watched a girl cross the shallows, and how
her arms did not move as she walked