Poetry Corner with Kwesi BISSUE: Highly Infectious Venom (H. I. V.) -1

Still in her teenage years

Celestine suddenly grew from a child to a mother

Still in her teens

She gave birth to her first child at sixteen

To prove she was not a child at sixteen

A proud mother of that little girl of hers

‘My baby,’ she called her

 

Now that Celestine was a mother, just like her mother

Her peers had a question for her

“Here’s your father

Where is your baby’s father?”

She’s my baby, no questions further!

Please!

 

Celestine soon moved into a refresh mode

Thanks to her parents whose compassionate mood

Moved them to put her into an apprenticeship

An apprenticeship of hair braiding

And of hair perming

Also of hair drying and of hair curling

To mould her into a fresh mode

 

Of those needing a weave-on

And a wig-on

Also of those wanting to have a manicure

And a pedicure

All to bring her back to a sound growing mode

 

But little did they know

That Celestine would deal them a further blow

And take a step back

Into a troubling track

 

Celestine would serve all customers with compassion

Even friends and partners and spouses of clients

Especially those needing special attention

Especially those needing holding and touching

Especially those requesting caressing and kissing

…with passion

 

She received the best gifts from clients

With hands full of appreciation

She promised to give them her best with open arms

Whether it was a call within work hours

Or a call after work hours

Whether it was a call for her

Or a call from her

A promise she kept

 

Her apprenticeship

Gradually trailed

A pale second

To her relationships

 

Celestine got well tuned up to this routine

She knew when to tell a lie to hide the truth

To fake a truth for a lie

To tell a lie to sound like truth

But the truth was that she began to feel unwell

This truth she knew so well

 

One visit to the hospital was all it took

To spill all the beans, to reveal the truth

She was highly infected with a virus

And she believed it so well

For she had been so unwell

 

Celestine hid it so well

To whom could she tell?

To whom could her beans be spilled?

For a doom to spell?

 

Another visit to the hospital dimmed her fears

For an anti-retroviral to lower a viral load was administered

It was loaded intermittently into her blood stream

To slow down a streaming progression towards a dreaded patient

 

While Celestine hoped patiently for a virus to offload

A flurry of marriage proposals waited for her to upload

How could she be so inconsiderate to say aye

So unkind to infect an innocent guy

 

So she shut her ears and her eyes

She would prefer a perpetual spinster to remain

An insensitive infector to refrain

Than to couple with an unsuspecting son of man

Who would only behold her beauty with his eyes

 

However, one tempting offer caught her off-guard

It was one suggested and sanctioned

And sponsored by her parents

As she lowered her guard to welcome this one

Her parents were beside themselves with ecstatic joy

“Now we can count among in-laws

Now we can dream to hold legit grand girls and boys”

…in our arms

 

Celestine’s groom of the future

Was not one to toy with a future

So he opted for tests of all sorts and nature

To assess his bride’s future with a groom

To prove his own readiness to feature as a well-groomed groom

 

There was a day chosen for the test

A test to put all fears to rest

There was a groom ready to test

But Celestine was not ready to awaken her fears from rest

 

She put all matters to rest

She wound a rope tight around her neck

And left the rest of her body to hang

After she had hung a handwritten text on a door knob

“I am a hive of a Highly Infectious Venom”

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