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Skirting around dustbin dreams
By Jumoke Verissimo Skirting around dustbin
dreams
We were seven at
the time. Playing by the
garbage dump. I seven, he seven claiming eight.
He needed to be older to play daddy's part.
He and I had no
mother or father, we were
left by the dump, we grew in the dump and clumped
close to ourselves but far away from other waifs.
We made real
life with our armless and headless baby,
a cloth doll left in the dump. We cared for it and
never left her lonely, I never left her alone in the dump.
He made the dump
very homely, by gathering utensils for
me. Kitchen utensils from milk tins and plastic plates
and we dreamt of real food in our empty plastic and tin plates
We grew older
than the dump and the council put us in a home.
We still played father under the covers of the night behind
the council's home, we talked holding hands thinking of the dump
He made a
decision after that if I ever had a baby
we won't leave it by the dump, we won't make him feel
lonely and leave him to play alone in the murkiness of dirt.
We walked to the
dump with the baby in our hands years after,
avoiding eye
contacts, so we won't break into each other's
thought on
promises we made in the past by the dump
Never to make a baby with a garbage dream.
But We did. |
