POETRY CORNER WITH KWESI BISSUE: Gold For Less

Come Thursday

I take a shopping list to the market

A weekly list

Today the market is roaring

Hawking and honking and howling

Hustling and jostling and whistling

It’s a different market day today

Dragging and pulling and pushing

A bustling Thursday!

 

Now a pregnant hen is dragged to a market day

And her chicks are pushed sheepishly

Some still in their shells

Now a duck and its ducklings are pulled by the neck

To run a marathon in their tracks

To partake in a market day

 

Then I know it’s that moment in time

For everything to sell

At the definite drop of a gavel

And the deafening clinking of a bell

A fine market day

 

Just one look

And I locate all my winged, featherly delicacies

The giant rooster

The motherly hen

The vociferous guinea fowl

Even the neckful duck

And their golden eggs

So oval, fresh and full of life

But entirely out of their coops

 

Well, I know why they all tagged along

Well, I heard there was no one at home

Agya had left for the farm at dawn

He had wished Eno a marketful day

Agya would not be home until just before dusk

Only after he was done with a day’s hoeing task

Bringing some good foodies along

 

Today I pay for a giant cock

I spare a mother hen

I tuck a duck into the lower deck of my market day basket

Never mind the serpentine neck

But I think to mind the ducklings

Today I box them into a pack

Today I collect plenty of their golden eggs

Today I pay what is less than a penny

Be it for a duck or for a cock

 

Eno said I was as good as to shop right

Her valued customer

Eno brings her ‘customer care’ to bear without a bargain

She counts her lot and thinks I deserve a discount

She vouches for a vociferous guinea fowl

To follow me home free from cost

This market day she suffered no loss, she said

Eno wishes me to return, come the next market day

To come and buy right

 

Eno throws her eyes heavenward

Instinctively

The sun had decided to dim

Suddenly

She picks up mother hen and her chicks

Some still in their shells

They are still up for sale, she yells

Racing forward and backward

 

Then she makes a quick dash to a stall across hers

As she tucks mother hen under her armpit

My eyes follow with full lenses

I look miserably as she releases mother hen

I see as she dumps mother hen on a waiting lap

In a stall across hers

 

My eyes capture it all

As he collects them all

All the fish crumbs and their detached heads

The fish that had arrived with heads fully attached

Now had no heads after many round trips of market days

The putrid smell did no harm to her nasal ways

As Eno collects them all

 

I widen more lenses in my watching eyes

I gasp as Eno collects with such odd seriousness

I sigh as she exchanges her Golden hen for stinking fish

For stinking fish!

Stinking fish to lick for less

 

Oh how she sells the Golden hen that lays the Golden eggs

Oh how she adds the Golden chicks

Only for a penny

Oh how she sells the Golden eggs

Only days before they are hatched

 

What good are those fish carcasses

I wonder

Oh Agya would return with a basket full of foodstuff, she coughs

Plenty of green stuff

Plenty of fresh leafy greens

Not much we will need

Any fish we get we feed

Only some filled bowls to fill our hungry needs

Swimming fish or stinking fish?

Why does it matter?

 

So she sells her Gold for a penny

Then she makes less for her plenty

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