An Engagement for Burning
Octavia McBride-Ahebee – United States

I took her
lamenting
protected
within the boundaries of my burka
buried beneath the world

I took Billie* with me
a haggard chorus of one
a voice tied to silk and twisted hemp
that cut my ears with a melodic charm

her stretched out words
the ones that never stood to be sounded
were an incantation
pouring my despair across a crop
drugged and lying in wait for me

she squeezed herself through an iPod
a euphonious amulet
energized by currents of expectations
a gift given by a visiting girl from the West of Philly
to encourage my heart
a girl who came to Herat
with beaded hair
braided in the shape of a halo
carrying the world in a Wal-Mart duffel bag

we are both Khadeeja
the supposed complement of someone else
she taught her sisters an ambitious grammar
tied to a human history
told through Holiday’s songs
amid the redolence of the musk-scented roses
and orange blossoms
in the hall of fields flushed with swaying poppies
poppies naked in their fearless redness
red like the hardened candy apples I lick through my cloth cage
a cage with no delicious opening
for my tongue to peek out
and taste the world.

I will burn myself today
when the sun is its most vain
amid the opulence of candy-colored poppies
between the embrace of voluptuous pining trees
with Billie plugged in my ears.

I will pour from a returnable Coca-Cola bottle
dinner’s petrol
over my whole existence
and wish
that someone
with hands that are enlightened
will rub the sweetness of honey into my wounds.

*Billie Holiday, American jazz singer