• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Sexuality in Africa

Journal of Theology for Southern Africa

  • Home
  • Contents
  • Resources
  • Show Search
Hide Search

from Autobiography of my mother

Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (155) by Dora King

Print Article
The beginning was a burning drip of fire and sand
from a diviner's tray:

     "You will pound your womb into ash; carry your bulbs to the pyre"

That vast body. That loss, that one
line from many tongues.

I was wide, fleet footed
Free. I swallowed the plea
opened my hands
to her underneath
to her colored seas

     I am the sea, the sea, the sea, I am not

A disaster loomed between fits of raptured sky
turned inside out,
a child then stone then bones for the sea

The last came broken at the knee
in defiance, she swelled then repelled
the curse

     I will bear fruit from his dark dance

I am draped, I am called
I give
each one I bear I name, and
when I recede the emptiness gapes
Salt without taste

     from the beat of the xylophone and the hum

I am a key to the hymn
A thread for the shredded mind drowning a doll.
A song for one who howls grief into a soft mist.

Sing you last, low with the wolves, Sing, you last impeccable leaf.

Filed Under: Poetry

About Dora King

Dora King lived in Sierra Leone and Kenya before coming to the United States to attend Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She is a poet, singer, LGBT activist and ethnographic researcher in public health and a PhD student in anthropology at Columbia University, New York City. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, literature and cinema, African culture and public health.

Primary Sidebar

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

From the Heart

My love

By Musa Okwonga

To Tell the Truth

By Mpiloe Zondi

A Desperate Cry for Mama Africa

By Rev. Kapya Kaoma, Th.D.

Tell me about that woman

By Rev. Kapya Kaoma, Th.D.

A Silent Cry

By Rev. Kapya Kaoma, Th.D.

from Autobiography of my mother

By Dora King

en English
ar Arabiczh-CN Chinese (Simplified)nl Dutchen Englishfr Frenchde Germanit Italianpt Portugueseru Russianes Spanish

Copyright © 2023 · Journal of Theology for Southern Africa