The Red Pencil

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by Andrea Davis Pinkney

“I. Can. Walk!”

  Leila will not budge.

  She has pinned her bottom to the ground,

  arms laced around herself,

  unmoving,

  and churning up too much noise.

  “I. Can. Walk!”

  Muma has reached the end of her tether.

  She is frustrated.

  Leila is making it worse.

  “I. Can. Walk!”

  Muma tries to reason with Leila.

  “You can walk.

  We know you are able.

  But now you must ride.”

  “No donkey!”

  Like such a baby, Leila cries.

  Muma clasps both Leila’s shoulders,

  preparing to scold

  my stubborn sister.

  Old Anwar intervenes,

  clasping, too,

  Muma’s forearms.

  He is stern when he says,

  “Let the child walk.”

  NO MOON

  As we make our way,

  we stay quiet,

  and always hidden.

  It’s not safe.

  If Sayidda Moon decides to flee, too,

  if, like us, she wants to hide,

  this time we do not call her.

  This time only,

  we let Sayidda Moon conceal her face.

  Old Anwar tells us

  we’re now in a region where

  militia comb,

  looking for ways to scrub the territory

  clean

  of anyone they deem

  a threat.

  “This war,” he says. “It is a fight over land and rights.

  Such a wicked conflict.

  Africans and Arabs, each feeling entitled.

  Greed and arrogance have brought bloodshed.”

  Best to let Sayidda Moon’s light rest

  behind cloud cover.

  These nights,

  never ending.

  CURSED

  I’ve lost my twig!

  I beg Muma,

  “We must turn back!”

  I know this can’t happen,

  but I can think of

  no other way.

  Muma tries to comfort me.

  “You will find another.”

  This doesn’t help.

  There is no other

  turning-twelve twig.

  There is no other gift from Dando.

  Our village superstition is true.

  The hidden moon

  has brought

  bad

  luck!

  MISERY

  Old Anwar’s donkey

  forces breaths

  through loose,

  thirsty lips.

  We keep walking.

  In darkness.

  Not talking.

  Only wanting

  this misery over.

  QUEASY

  How long,

  and how many

  nights have we walked,

  single file?

  And since we still don’t know where.

  And since

  my whole body aches.

  And since

  my stomach churns

  with hunger,

  I can’t tell how much longer.

  DAZED

  All sense,

  gone.

  I know only to pray

  to Allah:

  Make this end soon.

  QUICK-STREAM

  There’s only one way to get relief.

  Squat behind a bush.

  Hike my toob fabric.

  Let go fast.

  Release a stream.

  Hurry!

  Hurry!

  I must rush

  to keep up

  with the group.

  It’s a miracle there’s any water

  anywhere on my parched

  insides.

  Perhaps I’m part camel,

  storing up

  for this

  long walk

  on a path of despair.

  DISPLACED

  I don’t know what day this is,

  but I do know it is day.

  First light brings a promise.

  Up ahead, we see it.

  Old Anwar tells us,

  “We are at Kalma.”

  The sign says:

  DISPLACED PEOPLE’S CAMP.

  Kalma’s outsides are dressed

  in wire necklaces,

  and fences,

  and tents

  where workers welcome us

  by shoving our tired,

  dirty,

  very thirsty,

  dusty bodies

  through slices of fabric

  that open onto shanties

  crammed together,

  like peanuts in a too-tight shell.

  Everywhere I look,

  I see

  people, people, and more people.

  I’m glad to stop walking.

  I’m glad we have finally reached who-knows-where.

  But already I do not like this place.

  PART 2

  KALMA

  April 2004–June 2004

  SCRAPS

  Our house is made of rice-bag scraps.

  No walls,

  only plastic flaps,

  billowing

  in stale breezes.

  The roof of this rice-bag house

  is patched together

  from the roots

  of diseased, brittle trees.

  This place,

  this dwelling,

  a misshapen dome.

  Home?

  DISBELIEF

  Dando,

  in this new land,

  memories haunt me.

  In my mind’s shadow,

  that ugly day

  will not go away.

  Dando,

  I watched you fall,

  but I can’t

  believe

  what I saw.

  I remember the bullets,

  hammering.

  I remember screams,

  and shrieks,

  and prayers for mercy.

  But

  it doesn’t

  seem true.

  It’s worse than a horror-dream.

  Bodies

  dropping

  like overripe mangoes,

  surrendered

  from their places on a beautiful tree.

  But what fell

  —thud!—

  to the sand

  was not sweet fruit.

  One—thud!—then another,

  then one more,

  until many men

  and women

  and boys and girls

  littered our land.

  What fell

  was anyone

  who tried to flee

  on that violent day

  when bullets flung

  from no place I know.

  When those gunshots

  flew with no warning,

  or expectation,

  or good reason

  to leave fathers,

  brothers,

  daughters,

  elders—and my Dando—

  dead

  on the blood-smeared sand.

  I can’t believe

  what I saw.

  How can this be?

  Dando,

  we are in a strange place,

  without you.

  Are you really gone?

  I just can’t believe it.

  VANISHING

  Something

  is

  s l i p p i n g

  a w a y.

  Draining

  out

  from

  deep

  in

  me.

  G r a i n s

  o f

  g

  o

  z

  a l l

  f

  a

  l

  l

  i n g…

  I… I… t-r-r-r-y to c
all after them,

  as I would

  a running-off lamb.

  “Come heeere… come… heeere.…”

  I work to bring words,

  but… but…

  get only half sound.

  Slurred murmur.

  Broken whisper

  s l i d i n g

  off.

  Me,

  struggling to speak.

  Stammering.

  “Come

  heeere.…

  Come…”

  My voice

  v a n i s h i n g.

  MOURNING

  Muma weeps quietly.

  She waits

  for night to fall,

  so we won’t witness

  her crying.

  She waits

  for the deepest part of the dark,

  thinking she can hide

  from Leila,

  from me.

  My sister is restless, but sleeping.

  I’m fully awake,

  blinking

  into night’s nothingness.

  The sky is clear.

  It offers blue light,

  illuminates the inside of our shack.

  Lets me see

  my mother’s body

  pulled into a knot.

  When the worst of it overtakes Muma,

  she stifles sobs,

  only half-released by

  the trembling widow

  she’s become.

  Muma doesn’t want us to watch her

  wipe hard at her eyes

  with the backs

  of both hands.

  Muma, so proud,

  doesn’t want us to know

  she’s given way to grief’s

  weakness.

  My proud mother thinks

  she’s hiding.

  But when morning comes,

  she wakes with a tear-stained face.

  RUBBER TWIGS

  The soil at Kalma is dark,

  dry,

  smelly.

  Oh, that odor!

  Worse than cow plop.

  Thick and sickening, it is.

  A sour mix of rot

  and sorrow,

  rancid trash,

  decaying memories.

  Kalma’s twigs

  are limp,

  rubbery

  reeds of nothing.

  It’s as if they’ve lost all will

  to grow.

  These sickly sticks don’t spread

  or poke—they wither.

  I try to snap a twig from trees

  and bushes,

  but to do it, I must wrestle.

  I must twist and twist,

  with gritted teeth,

  fighting to break off a branch,

  while at the same time working to breathe away

  the filthy earth,

  stinking,

  and rising to greet me.

  There is so much sadness

  in Kalma’s dirt.

  No life in this camp’s branches.

  Flimsy,

  wiry,

  withering souls

  whose trees are just as weak.

  I don’t want to draw,

  at all,

  on this rancid land,

  with these meek,

  rubber strands,

  so bendy.

  My hand’s dance is gone.

  My sparrow has lost its wings.

  Goz, I miss you.

  SILENCE

  What started

  as slipping,

  what began as a vanishing voice,

  is now fully gone.

  I

  can

  not

  speak.

  Words,

  like tugged teeth.

  Yanked

  from every part of me.

  CROWDED KALMA

  Everywhere bodies:

  all of us sweaty,

  desperate,

  uprooted.

  Everywhere bodies:

  ride rickety bikes,

  held together

  with rust

  and spit

  and trust.

  Everywhere bodies:

  clustered and wondering,

  Why are we here?

  Everywhere bodies:

  We are tribespeople,

  farmers,

  villagers.

  Huddled

  at wide-open trash bins.

  Poking down in

  with the rubber twigs,

  fishing for food,

  no matter how foul.

  Everywhere bodies:

  We’ve fled

  peaceful homes.

  Beautiful villages.

  Abundant farms.

  Forced to leave

  prosperous lands

  whose unfortunate luck

  has set us in unsafe places,

  making us prey

  to the Janjaweed.

  Everywhere bodies:

  now packed together

  in crowded Kalma.

  Everywhere bodies:

  mix-and-match

  cultures,

  clashing,

  smashing

  against

  one another.

  All so different,

  but also the same.

  Everywhere bodies:

  with one common trait.

  Sad eyes

  turned downward,

  searching for answers

  not found in smelly dirt.

  ECHO

  Chirpity

  chirpity

  chwreeeep

  chwreeeeeeeeep…

  Chwrrrreep…

  I hear a bird,

  distant,

  low-calling

  from some smothered place

  that feels like it belongs to me.

  Where is that sound coming from?

  The springs in my mind?

  The way back of my tongue?

  From behind my belly button?

  Where is that chirpity bird?

  Who’s holding that chwreeep-chwreeeeep…?

  One thing I know for certain.

  The chirpity bird is fighting to make sound.

  It‘s tamped down,

  pressed back,

  suffocated.

  Wanting,

  so much wanting

  to chwreeeep

  free.

  This strangled birdsong

  can’t escape its own echo.

  LOCKED

  Muma tries,

  but it’s useless.

  She coaxes,

  coddles,

  as if feeding a finicky child.

  “Start slow,” she says.

  “A bit at a time.

  Just a little.”

  She’s working to soften

  her twisted brows,

  hoping this will somehow help.

  “One word, Amira.

  You can do it, child.

  A whisper to begin.

  Can you say

  Muma?

  Leila?”

  She speaks to me

  as if I’ve forgotten her name,

  and Leila’s.

  I know the names,

  but can’t say them.

  I shake my head.

  Pain-clouds rise in Muma’s eyes.

  She takes both my hands in hers.

  Holds them.

  Kneads them,

  as if she’s shaping dough.

  “Amira, sorrow’s fence

  has locked you in,” she says.

  “The only way out

  is through time.”

  THE WATER GIVER

  There is water at Kalma.

  But it doesn’t collect or flow

  from the river’s mouth.

  Here,

  water is doled out,

  in what feel like pinched droplets.

  All day we wait

  in lines of longing.

  Waiting on wet

  from t
he water giver’s hand.

  The water giver,

  a man

  strictly sticking to his rules of ration:

  one gallon

  per person

  per day

  It’s the women who stand

  in the lines of longing,

  waiting on wet from the water giver’s hand:

  one plastic jug

  for washing

  cleaning

  bathing

  drinking

  The water giver’s hand must fill many needs.

  Today,

  while Muma and I stand

  and wait,

  I pray the water giver’s one-gallon grip

  will slip,

  and somehow

  let more wet spill into our jug.

  It’s hard

  waiting for what is not enough.

  It hurts

  to pray for deprivation.

 

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