An African Girlchild - Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe

She wakes up early in the morning and works like a mother

Which she is not but only a child.

She has to clean the house as if it belongs to her

But it doesn’t, she’s only living there.

She has to cook to feed her siblings

But what to cook is the big question.

Perhaps she must cook the questions

Fry them until they become the answers to her poverty.

Children should never be poor

After all they inherit poverty from poor parents.

But then, like an angry cobra another question raises its head:

What can the child do if born by poor parents?

Her parents chose each other

But then she couldn’t choose her parents

The conundrum of life keeps her canned in poverty.

She was born in poverty to inherit poverty.

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Christopher Kudyahakudadirwe (20th century) Zimbabwe

Source: Popping Poetry