Part # 2

Now I am sitting on the dusty, trampled curb of our bombed-out house.

A shell of a house at best, the family run with all its belongings.

The light,

mostly the same.

Perhaps a few more lamps and whiter.

I am with "K" Diouf.

I think she's sad because her husband stayed home with his second wife.

He is my friend, the tailor.

She feels alone,

young and fun,

and beautiful with large eyes, dark brows, sharp lined features.

And a smile, triangle shaped, that takes up her whole face.

Who would want a second wife?

I think she's sick a lot.

She's very tiny.

She sees her son,

fitting by in the tight crowd.

All of the kids are free tonight

to take their bargained pennies

and buy cheap stuff for their moms.

This after saving their 500CFA pass,

to climb aboard a giant yellow dump truck, to be whisked and beat by thorn trees, as they "jaar" the yoon u suuf.

She gives him a few coins

to buy her some ice cream from the ice cream man (cart.)

She proudly tells me its name.

Li, dafa xew.

He comes back with two.

This woman,

tiny, perhaps afraid to eat,

or sick, and hungry,

has taken a large part of her "deponse" to buy me, and her, a cone.

Transfixed by the tiny, pink and white ice cream cone.

I think of my home country.

Of my mom, my sister, and our huge, dripping ice cream cones,

so quickly consumed.

I look at K Diouf's sad, dark brimmed eyes.

And I say

"Thank you."