THE WOMAN WHO MARRIED MY HUSBAND
Woman,
I drink this poison
To your honor,
I drink it
Till God cries,
Then you'll hear
Your sound too,
When I am done
Weaving your flywhisks.
Woman,
Come crawling on your goat-knees here,
Here before me,
Come crawling
Like a dog that has farted!
O my clansmen,
I returned to you!
Speak to my new husband,
Speak to Lukwiya — your brother!
He is dead,
Dead alive!
A walking coffin — you see;
He is dead and buried
In advance,
This shell of a man
You call my husband
Is a walking silhouette!
A millet chaff
Merely blown away
By a weak-waisted wind,
Like a loose light feather,
This bone without flesh
You scornfully call my husband
Is a walking skeleton!
O my clansmen,
I am tired
Of this man who the wife married.
By the truth of my mother spread naked
Upside down,
If I am telling a lie,
May lightening strike me dead,
I tell you the truth,
O my clansmen,
Alcohol has married my new husband already,
And he tells me
That if he is to refuse alcohol,
He would rather die!
That he will never refuse alcohol
Till dogs refuse bones,
That if he is to hate alcohol
And love me,
He would rather lie
With his grandmother!
My clansmen,
My husband is an arrogant monkey;
He is a log of wood
Women have left
As brewers leave dregs.
He is a barking African dog,
His hands are like the hand of the borehole,
He is a poisonous snake
Whose poisonous fangs
Have been removed by new lifestyle,
Except that he bites a poor woman
Like I am.
My clansmen,
I am my new husband sister!
Lukwiya sleeps and turned his back on me;
My clansmen,
My husband's body needs a repair
With a black goat,
A white chicken,
Saltless sneezed peas
And a sheep-dung...
Drumsticks have to roll
Upon the baby drums
And hard palms have to strike the mother drums,
And the Wise One begins
Wer Jok
For the chorus women and men
To chant upon my husband
To dance naked
Before the Great Clan Oracle;
Or to let him sit
Amidst a marching troop of black ants —
Why?
Because his axe has fallen into water.
Why does my new husband curls
Like a well-satisfied python,
And turns his back on me,
And snores and fart till dawn?
Am I a wall-portrait?
Does my mortar hates its pistil?
O my clansmen,
Speak to my new husband,
Lukwiya needs your talking to,
He does hear my words,
He is a bull that has broken loose from the kraal,
A bull that has broken its ox-log;
Alcohol has married him already.
His gourd of strange concentrated beer...